UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



|M| BULLETIN No. 1125 iWf 





J^^'^^U 



Washington, D. C. 



PROFESSIONAL PAPER 



February, 1923 



THE SAIDY DATE OF EGYPT: 



A VARIETY OF THE FIRST RANK ADAPTED TO COMMER- 

 CIAL CULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



By S. C. Mason, Arboriculturist, Office of Crop Physiology and Breeding 

 Investigations, Bureau of Plant Industry. 



CONTENTS. 



Fase. 



Discovery of the commercial value of 

 the Saidy variety of date 1 



Essential characters of a great com- 

 mercial variety 8 



The principal commercial varieties of 

 dates 2 



Character and early history of the Lib- 

 yan oases, the home of the Saidy 

 date 3 



Early Egyptian knowledge of the date 

 palm 3 



Accounts of oasis dates by modern 

 travelers 6 



Pago. 



Quest for the " Wahi " date by the 

 United States Department of Agri- 

 culture, proving the identity of the 

 " Wahi," " Sewi," and Saidy dates — 13 



Importations of the Saidy date under 

 various names 15 



The Saidy date as a commercial va- 

 riety 25 



Temperature requirements of the Saidy 

 date 27 



Resistance of the Saidy date to humid- 

 ity and dew-point conditions 32 



Literature cited 34 



DISCOVERY OF THE COMMERCIAL VALUE OF THE SAIDY VARIETY 



OF DATE. 



Of the hundreds of distinct varieties of the date pahii recognized 

 and propagated in the date-growing world scarcely a dozen have 

 attained more than local importance and reputation, and of these 

 only a few have attained commercial importance in Europe or 

 America. 



The discovery, then, of the commercial possibilities and adapta- 

 tion to southern California conditions of the Saidy variety of Egvpt 

 marks a new era in date production in the United States. 



This new candidate for commercial favor in our American date- 

 growing regions has been known to European explorers of the 

 oases of the Libyan Desert (Fig. 1) for more than a century under 

 the name " Sayd " or " Saydeh," while accounts of the excellence of 

 the dates of these oasis dependencies of Egypt and of the caravans 

 which brought them to the Nile Valley reach back to very remote 

 periods. Modern geographers and surveyors of the Libyan Desert 



8965—23 1 



