14 
BULLETIN 1125, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
As a matter of fact, Mr. Eankin was closely questioned by Mr. 
Fairchild on this point, as is shown by the following extract from his 
letter of April 15, 1904: 
W. T. Swingle, who has been making a special study of the date palm, sends 
me the following notes regarding the dates reported from the oases east of 
Fayum (copy of notes not attached). 
They would seem to indicate that the date under the name of " Saydeh " is 
the best date which occurs in the Oasis Baharieh, and it is important to deter- 
mine whether the Wahi date, which is said to come from Siwah, really occurs 
in the Oasis of Baharieh or if the " Saydeh " is not the sort which really comes 
to the Fayum and is called by the Arabs " Wahi." Should arrangements be 
made for you to make the trip to these different oases, we would want suckers 
of this " Saydeh " date. 
An article on the date palm by Fletcher (1^) in the Agricultural 
Ledger, Calcutta, 1906, concludes with a table of "well-known 
varieties of dates " in which appears among others the " Wahi, or 
Sewi," from the " Seewah Oasis " of Egypt : 
Class. 
Country. 
Egypt... 
Center. 
Name of 
variety. 
Date of. 
ripening. 
Soil re- 
quire- 
ments. 
Market. 
Character of 
fruit. 
1. Soft.... 
Seewah 
Oasis. 
Wahi, or Sewi . . . 
August.. 
Sandy... 
Fayum, 
Egypt. 
Plump and 
yellow. 
Fletcher had before him Bureau of Plant Industry Bulletin 53 
and credits Swingle { c 27) with giving considerable material. The 
source of this combination " Wahi, or Sewi," is difficult to guess. 
Xone of the writers who had visited the oasis had noted any variety 
called "Sewi." Only Delchevalerie (10), who was not an explorer, 
had mentioned " Balah Syouy " from " oasis de Syoua." 
We find Foaden and Fletcher (15) listing 10 leading varieties of 
Egyptian dates, and the " Sewi " is again credited to " Sewa Oasis," 
as follows : 
(4) Sewi, which as its name indicates, is largely cultivated in the Siwa 
Oasis, is a comparatively short but thick and yellow date. The ripe fruit is 
usually pounded and kneaded together into a kind of paste or cake known 
as "Agoua." The finest sorts are preserved in small skin bags, the stones 
being first removed, while the common sorts are kept in bags made of date 
leaves. It is thus largely used as food during the whole year and constitutes 
one of the chief articles of food among the poorer classes. 
The foregoing rather indefinite description might apply equally 
well to dates from the oases (the Saidy) or to that found in upper 
Gizeh which has till now been known as the " Sewi." That the 
" Sewi " of Gizeh Province, orchards of which were actually in sight 
of the School of Agriculture at Gizeh, of which this author was prin- 
cipal, should have been completely overlooked seems rather aston- 
ishing, although in justice to Mr. Fletcher we must add that " Chap- 
ter XIII, Fruits," is credited to G. Bonaparte (4). 
Beadnell (J), formerly of the Geological Survey of Egypt, gives 
the following account of the " Saidi " date : 
In Egypt there are about 50 varieties of date palm, the chief kinds in Kharga 
Oasis being the Saidi, Tamar, Falig, and Hamrawi. The Saidi dates of the 
oasis are generally considered to be superior in flavor to almost any other 
Egyptian variety and have in consequence a ready sale in the Nile Valley. The 
other varieties are not exported to any great extent, except, perhaps, the Falig; 
