252 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



Whereas, The road law of 1883 exempted said cities and towns from road districts, 

 thereby putting the whole burden of road construction and maintenance upon the 

 farmer and fruit-grower ; therefore be it 



Resolved, That we, the Fruit-growers of California, in Convention assembled, respect- 

 fully ask the incoming Legislature to amend said laws so as to equalize the burdens of 

 taxation for road purposes fairly between country and cities. 



MR. JUDD. I move the suspension of the rules and that this reso- 

 lution be put upon its passage. 



The motion was dulv seconded and carried. 



Mr. S. C. Mason, of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, was 

 requested to speak of date palm culture. 



DATE GROWING IN CALIFORNIA. 



By S. C. MASON, of Washington, D. C. 



Ladies and Gentlemen of the Convention: I have been an interested 

 listener to your discussions and papers here and had not expected to 

 take any part in this meeting. I will be glad, however, to say a few 

 words regarding the date industry, which is something that is compara- 

 tively new to California and the southwest. Of course, date trees have 

 been grown — are grown in the region north of Los Angeles, but prob- 

 ably very few fruiting successfully. 



The date, as it is expressed by the Arab, is the "queen of fruits.'' It 

 must grow with its roots in abundant water and its head in the glowing 

 skies. We have the glowing skies "in the southern part of the State 

 and we have the abundant heat. Briefly, dates require a very long 

 growing season of extreme heat and extreme dryness of the atmosphere 

 and lack of rainfall, especially lack of rainfall during the ripening 

 season, in the months of September, October, and November. I think 

 the first introduction, in a systematic way, of date varieties from the 

 regions of Africa was made about 1888 or 1889 by the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. There are a few surviving trees of those importa- 

 tions, the only one that I know of personally being a tree growing near 

 Indio, an offshoot that was given by the Department of Agriculture to 

 General Towne and "by him transferred to a homesteader named Patrick 

 Kelly, who planted it when Indio was simply a wood siding. This tree, 

 then, is something like eighteen or twenty years old. I had the pleasure 

 of pollenating that tree last spring. It stands, perhaps, as high as that 

 gallery. Perhaps I ought to say that the date has the fruiting flowers 

 on one tree, the male or pollen-bearing flowers on another. This is 

 true almost without exception, although we found near Tempe a very 

 curious condition, male and female flowers on the Same tree, like on 

 the corn stalk; but these are very rare cases, so far as we know. In 

 systematic date culture about fifty of the female or bearing trees are 



