94 DATEGROWING 



All the medieval writers consider that the palm 

 should be irrigated occasionally with brine. There is 

 no evidence, however, to show that it benefits from 

 such treatment. 



Many of the talismans and charms by which the 

 growers of antiquity professed to influence the palm 

 are nothing more than a crude sort of fertilization. 

 Ibn Awam, for instance, says, "There is a prodigious 

 secret of marvelous virtue, which is to take fourteen 

 pounds of the aromatic rush of Babylon, dig a hole 

 in the ground and bury it; after twenty-one days dig 

 it up and spread it on the trees" (to increase their 

 yield.) "It must be done in the sign of Taurus or of 

 Cancer; I myself have tried it with notable success." 

 Obviously this is nothing more than adding a little 

 humus to the soil. Again he says, "If your trees bear 

 intermittently, dig a trench around them at two cubits 

 distance and put palm leaves and branches in it; 

 wet them five times at intervals of five or six days, 

 after which, if it be the will of God, the tree will bear." 



This intermittent bearing of the palm is a factor 

 with which every grower must reckon. In light sandy 

 soil, lacking in humus, it is almost impossible to get a 

 palm to bear a uniformly heavy crop each year; 

 old palms always show a tendency to rest every other 

 year; while young ones in full vigor will require an 

 entire season to recuperate if they are allowed to 

 bear too heavily. A grower who gets a new palm into 

 bearing, particularly if it be of a valuable variety, 

 naturally wants as much fruit as possible, so he lets 

 it bear a maximum crop, with the result that he has 

 nothing at all the following season. The palm must 

 be brought into bearing gradually: one bunch the 

 first year, two or three the second, three or four the 



