B. P. I.— 74. S. P. I. D.— 38. 



PERSIAN GULF DATES AND THEIR INTRODUCTION 



INTO AMERICA. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The valley of the Euphrates is said to be the birthplace of the date 

 palm. Whether this is true or not, it is certain that nowhere else in 

 the world are more favorable conditions for the cultivation of the date 

 to be found than along the shores of the Persian Gulf and in Lower 

 Mesopotamia. 



The Persian Gulf date region is doubtless the largest in the world 

 and furnishes the greatest part of all the dates sold in the American 

 markets. Two million cases, or over a hundred million pounds of 

 dates, have been exported in a single year from the principal shipping- 

 port ; and at a very moderate estimate — for no even approximate data 

 are obtainable — there must be not less than fifteen to twenty million 

 date palms in this great territory. 



The date plantations of Biskra, in the Sahara, contain little over 

 half a million palms, according to Swingle." while the immense region 

 comprising Upper and Lower Egypt together is estimated by W ill- 

 cocks* to have only 7.400,000 date palms in cultivation. Moroccan 

 and Spanish gardens are insignificant in comparison with these great 

 regions, and no one connected date area can compare in size with the 

 plantations which extend for 70 miles in an unbroken forest from 

 below Mohammerah to above Kurna, on the Shat-el-Arab River. 

 This strip of forest varies in width from less than a mile to over 3 

 miles, and more than 5,000,000 trees, it is estimated, are packed into it. 

 There is certainly nothing comparable to it in the world, either as 

 regards size or the ease with which it can be irrigated. 



Date growing in Arizona is rapidly passing the experimental stage. 

 The fact that this fruit could be grown there, however, was first called 

 to the attention of the public by the success of a number of chance 

 seedlings which bore good crops of fine fruit. The seeds from which 



"Swingle, W. T. The Date Palm and its Culture. In Yearbook of Department 

 of Agriculture for 1900, p. 461. 



MVilloocks, W. Egyptian Irrigation, 1899, pp. 17-18. 



