HERE AND THERE IN NORTHERN AFRICA 



129 



strong and vigorous, but no longer gives 

 forth shoots. At the age of 50 the palm 

 has grown so tall that it is weakened and 

 its annual crop of dates is not so abun- 

 dant 



When no longer of use for bearing 

 dates most of the palm leaves are cut off 

 and an incision is made in the top of the 

 trunk just below where the leaves grow. 

 A large pottery jar is hung underneath 

 the incision and a bamboo tap fastened 

 to carry the sap to the jar. 



This juice is called lagmi by the na- 

 tives and is greatly esteemed as a bever- 

 age. It is bluish white in color and has 

 an insipid sweetish taste when fresh, 

 rather refreshing when one is thirsty. It 

 ferments quickly and is then extremely 

 intoxicating. Europeans do not like it. 



Every date-bearing palm tree over 20 

 years old is taxed by the Tunisian gov- 

 ernment. 



The average yearly harvest of common 

 dates amounts to 32,000 quintals of 100 

 kilograms, or 7,040,000 pounds, and the 

 Degla variety 4,000 quintals of 100 kilo- 

 grams, or 880,000 pounds. When one 

 realizes that the above figures are for 

 one oasis, and that within 15 miles of 

 Tozeur are two other great oases — Nefta 

 and Deggache, often called El-Oudiane — 

 that yield an equal amount of dates, one 

 hegins to comprehend the importance of 

 the date harvest. 



Only the female palm bears dates. 

 The male palm has a few large white 

 flowers that somewhat resemble ostrich 

 plumes. Unless fertilized artificially the 

 female palm produces few, if any, dates. 

 A small piece of the male flower about 

 the size of an ear of wheat is tied into 

 the pod of the female flower. Any 

 flower not thoroughly fertilized produces 

 half of the bunch of dates immature and 

 hard, useless as food, and despised even 

 by camels. 



SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE WOULD VASTLY 

 INCREASE THE DATE 



On visiting the plantation of a Erench 

 friend I noticed that all of his date palms 

 hore perfect clusters of well - ripened 

 dates, and expressed my astonishment 

 that his were so perfect when the ad- 

 joining gardens owned by Arabs had 



only one-half or one-third of their dates 

 ripened, the remainder being a total loss. 



He laughed and said, "You know that 

 it is the custom of the country to pay 

 the men partly in dates. I told all of my 

 Arab gardeners that if they neglected 

 properly to fertilize the female palm 

 trees that their pay would be in the im- 

 mature, useless dates. Since then there 

 has been no shirking of the fertilization 

 and my date harvest has increased 

 enormously; before it was too much 

 trouble for the Arabs to climb up and 

 attend thoroughly to each palm and they 

 frequently slighted their work." 



This gentleman is an up-to-date "colo- 

 nial," born in Tunisia of Erench parents. 

 He is one of the rare exceptions, a 

 Frenchman that owns property in an 

 oasis, and it is interesting to compare the 

 result of his agricultural methods and 

 those of the Arabs. 



He has been in America and studied 

 our methods and has adopted what he 

 found best suited to his work in southern 

 Tunisia, and he attributes a great part of 

 his success to the Department of Agri- 

 culture at Washington, D. C. 



He has a trial garden where one-half 

 is planted by the old Arab method, the 

 other half according to the latest Amer- 

 ican and French agricultural methods. 

 He also uses chemical fertilizers, for this 

 particular garden has been cultivated 

 since the Roman occupation and the 

 ground probably has never been fertil- 

 ized. 



The result of his work appears like 

 magic. Palm trees planted four years 

 ago and fertilized have grown as large 

 as Arab palm trees ten years old. Every- 

 thing seems to thrive, and one sees un- 

 derneath the superb date palms, orange 

 and lemon trees, figs, pomegranates, 

 apricots, and bananas and grapevines 

 and numerous varieties of vegetables. 



Were the gardens of the oases owned 

 by Europeans and cultivated with mod- 

 ern methods the result would be phenom- 

 enal. Unfortunately the Arab owners of 

 the oases are not fond of hard work and 

 content themselves with comparatively 

 little. 



The beautiful oases of southern Tu- 

 nisia are as near an approach to the Gar- 



