52 DATEGROWING 



most dates. But in planting seeds of ordinary com- 

 mercial dates one takes the maximum risk of getting 

 unsatisfactory results, since the males from which they 

 are pollinated are usually chance seedlings, and likely 

 to be seedlings of inferior varieties, usually dry dates, 

 which have been dropped by natives. 



As occasional brilliant results achieved by seed- 

 ling dates in the United States have caused the larger 

 percentage of failures to be overlooked, it is worth 

 while to quote the observations of some of the scien- 

 tists who have given the subject critical study. 



J. Dybowski, former superintendent of the Jardin 

 Colonial, Paris, says in "Traite Pratique des Cultures 

 Tropicales," Challamel, Paris, 1902, vol. I, p. 493: 



"The date palm is multiplied with great facility 

 by means of seeds, which germinate readily as soon 

 as they are placed in contact with the soil. But the 

 plant, because of the antiquity of its culture, possesses 

 an extreme variability, so that, no matter how much 

 care is used in selecting the seeds, one is never certain 

 that he will not see the plants retrograde toward a 

 more primitive type and, later, give only worthless 

 fruits. We must, then, consider that this means of 

 propagation should be entirely abandoned in actual 

 practice, and that no one should hope by it to trans- 

 plant to a new locality the culture of this tree." 



Dr. George Schweinfurth, explorer and most 

 famous of modern botanists in Egypt, in Gartenflora 

 (Berlin), vol. 50, pp. 506 ff : 



"All date palms grown from seed give results of 

 the highest degree of uncertainty in respect to the 

 transmission of desirable characteristics. In addition, 

 the majority of the seedKngs are of the male sex. 

 The young offshoots, growing at the base of the trunk. 



