30 PERSIAN GULF DATES. 



intrusted with £10,000 to £20,000 in cash at a time, with which they 

 purchase the tons of dates that are necessary to supply the packing 

 sheds. As in most businesses of this kind, there are risks to be taken, 

 for the packer must bu}^ in August and sell in November, during 

 which time the price may have fluctuated considerably. It requires 

 good judgment to decide how much to pa} T in August for November 

 delivery. The New York shipments to be most profitable must be in 

 before Thanksgiving Day, and when this comes unusually early in the 

 month the packers have their hands full to get their shipments through 

 in time. Last season two steamer loads went direct from Bassorah to 

 New York, and though, owing to the bad crop and glutted market, 

 this venture did not prove a great success, the experiment will probably 

 be made again the coming year. 



THE DATE AS A FOOD. 



The doctors seem agreed that sweet things in excess are injurious to 

 the digestion, and the dentists claim that sugar ferments between the 

 teeth, forming lactic acid which attacks the dentine; but for all this, it 

 is doubtful if there can be found a sounder, stronger race, with better 

 digestion and finer, whiter teeth than the date-eating Arabs. The 

 town Arabs and the Arabs of the seacoast eat quantities of dried fish 

 and other sea animals, but the denizens of the Arabian desert live almost 

 exclusively upon dates and bread, with occasional feasts of sheep, 

 goat, or chicken. Travelers across those deserts report that 3 pounds 

 of dates and a few thin loaves of hard wheat bread per da} T will keep 

 an Arab in good health for years. The quantity of these packed dates 

 that a healthy Arab can consume at a sitting is astonishing. Two 

 pounds would not be much more than an ordinary meal. The remark- 

 able physique of the Arabs and their resistance to the almost unbear- 

 able heat of their country might be attributed, in part at least, to the 

 nature of their simple food. At any rate, a thorough investigation of 

 the food value of the date and its adaptability to the formation of 

 foods for our hot summer season should be made, and possibly this 

 wonderful vegetable product, which is now used in America only as a 

 second-class confection, might be utilized as a basis of a nutritious new 

 food. Such investigations will never be made in that part of the world 

 where the dates are grown, but must be undertaken by some country 

 like America which is interested in increasing the number of its food 

 products. 



