258 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES 
mental work on date culture was begun in this area by the United 
States Department of Agriculture in 1904, utilizing waters pumped 
from wells. Tests were made of many varieties from the principal 
date-growing regions of the Old World, but only a few were found to 
be suitable. The annual rainfall is less than 3 inches, and the humid- 
ity is very low. Although the temperature is high for most of the 
year, it falls below 32° at times, and it has gone to 15°. _In midwinter 
there are light frosts, which seldom continue beyond February. Most 
varieties of dates are injured by the slightest rainfall or even by dew 
during the ripening season, so that the complete dryness generally 
prevailing from August to November is especially favorable to the 
maturing of the fruit. As the soil at Mecca is nearly pure sand on 
the old lake beach, care has to be taken to develop sufficient humus 
and prevent the too rapid sinking of the irrigation water. There is 
more silt in the soil at Indio. It is necessary also to protect offshoots 
and seedlings in canvas-covered sheds where suitable temperature and 
humidity can be maintained. Most dates designed for long keeping 
and export have to be picked before they are fully ripened and care- 
sw. NE. 
, SantaRosa 
3400 " Mts. 
° ' 5 MILES 
Se eee Ce CSN WANN | 
FIGURE 62.—Diagrammatic section across Coachella Valley through Mecca, Calif. By W.C. Mendenhall 
fully sun dried. Seedling dates are about half females, which alone 
bear fruit, so that all males in excess of those necessary for pollination 
are culled out as soon as they can be recognized, which is from the 
age of 3 to 4 years. Pollination is best accomplished by shaking a 
frond of male flowers over the female flowers or by tying them together 
so that the wind will transfer the pollen. Trees usually bear fruit in 
_four years, at first in small amounts and then increasing in size and 
productiveness for many years. The fruit hangs in great clusters, as 
shown in Plate 37, A, and ripens in September, October, or November. 
On the 40-acre experimental date farm of the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, about a mile southeast of Mecca, systematic 
tests are in progress on the culture not only of dates but of other fruits 
suitable to the region. 
At Mecea the railroad company has a 1,500-foot well which supplies 
400 gallons a minute of water of excellent quality, used for locomo- 
__ faves at various places between that place and Glamis. The first well 
___ here, bored by the railroad company in 1894, struck an artesian flow 
a to that found at Thermal and Coachella several years before. 
