2 BULLETIN" 211, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The purchase of offshoots of the most desirable varieties was 

 effected through the courtesy of Egyptian and Sudan officials, to 

 whom the Department of Agriculture is also indebted for much 

 important information bearing upon cultural conditions. 



The analyses of the official weather records of Egypt and the 

 division of the Nile Valley into three zones in accordance therewith 

 throws much new light on the culture of dates in general and espe- 

 cially upon the behavior of the groups of varieties under consideration. 



NILE VALLEY DATES AND THEIR CLIMATIC ENVIRONMENTS. 



No one would venture to declare the age of date culture in Egypt, 

 but from the intercourse which the Egyptians are known to have 

 had with the neighboring date-growing lands at a very remote 

 time, there can be little doubt that the Egyptian people cultivated 

 the date at an early day. In the great Hall of Columns at Karnak, 

 attributed to the nineteenth dynasty, or 1,370 years B. C, many of 

 the columns are clearly modeled from a date tree, the capital 

 being the spreading leaves as they appear from beneath. We can 

 hardly doubt that date groves flourished then in the rich Nile lands 

 even as they do to-day. 



With the more than 7,000,000 date trees growing in Egypt to-day, 

 their product does not suffice for the wants of 11,000,000 people. 1 

 There is a small exportation of dates to Europe from the delta, 

 chiefly of the Amri variety, 2 but this is more than offset by the 

 importation of dates in fancy packages from Algeria and the Persian 

 Gulf and by the shipments of dry dates from the Sudan, a consid- 

 erable proportion of the date crop of Dongola Province finding its 

 way down the river. 



The dates described in the following paper comprise the chief com- 

 mercial varieties of Egypt, including the western oases and the Sudan. 

 The descriptions are from notes made hi August to December, 1913, 

 by the writer during a journey through the region described. Several 

 varieties of minor importance which it is believed have not before 

 been published are included. 



The writer makes no pretense that this bulletin presents a com- 

 plete list of Egyptian or Sudan varieties, which are exceedingly 

 numerous, for little attempt has been made to secure the names 

 even of the many seedling sorts which have received names and 

 have been propagated in a small way by their originators. Of the 



1 The official census of the date trees for taxation in 1907 is 5,966,010. Trees in gardens and estates which 

 pay a tax are not listed for separate taxation; also young trees under a certain minimum size are not listed 

 for taxes. These two classes of exemptions would add very greatly to the actual number of date trees 

 in the country. Sir William Willcocks estimated the total number of date trees in Egypt in 1S99 at about 

 7,400,000, producing fruit annually valued at £1,480,000. This would make the value of the annual date 

 crop a little below $1 per tree. 



2 In the Annual Statistics of the Egyptian Ministry of Finance for 1912 the average yearly exportations 

 of dates for the years 1905 to 1911 is given as 576,135 kilos, valued at £8,945, which would be, in round num- 

 bers, 1,267,000 pounds, at 3i- cents per pound. 



