80 DATEGROWING 



It appears that there are niceties about transplanting, 

 too, for the Book of Nabathean Agriculture* says 

 success in this operation will only be attained if the 

 grower has a lymphatic and lunar temperament, and 

 his body is in normal condition, and even under these 

 circumstances the transplanting would be an absolute 

 failure should it be attempted on the second day of the 

 lunar month. "In transplanting he should be gay 

 and joyous, without constraint, his face wreathed in 

 smiles; it is a thing which we have proved by expe- 

 rience and can recommend as being well-founded," 

 says the author. 



But let us leave the dark ages and get down to 

 actual facts. 



The modern grower who desires to propagate by 

 seed will first of all select his seed, if it is possible to do 

 so. The percentage of palms which come true will 

 depend on the extent to which pollination in previous 

 generations has been made by a male of the same 

 variety as the parent. In the case of most commercial 

 dates it is impossible to say what the male parent was, 

 but there are some cases in which the chance is greater 

 than others. Most Algerian dates, including Deglet 

 Nur from that region, are likely to have been pollinated 

 by a male which grew from a dry-date seed, since the 

 latter class of dates is commonly eaten by the natives, 

 who throw the seeds around, where one may strike 



*The Book of Nabathean Agriculture is one of the most famous 

 productions of the dark ages, in this 6eld, and has long been a fertile 

 subject for dispute among students. It purports to have been written 

 in Chaldean by one Quth^mi, and to have been translated into Arabic 

 by Ibnu-I Wahshiyyeh in 904 A. D., but scholars now consider it 

 to be a forgery of which Wahshiyyeh was the actual author, rather 

 than the translator. The MS. (No. 175) in the Bibhotheque Nationale 

 of Algiers, however, bears the introductory statement that it was 

 translated from Chaldean into Arabic by -Abti Bakr Ahmad b. Ali 

 b. Q4rs al Kusd^ al Qaisi in the year 291, i. e., 903 A. D. 



