UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry, 
Wm. A. Taylor, Chief. 
Washington, D.C. . PROFESSIONAL PAPER September 28, 1915 
DATES OF EGYPT AND THE SUDAN. 
By 8S. C. Mason, 
Arboriculturist, Crop Physiology and Breeding Investigations. 
CONTENTS. 
JSTROC IT ONO NS 5 oases oodosneouebc Homer erosees , 1D escriptionlOiavarietics ee. a. seee ease 17 
Nile Valley dates and their climatic environ- SS UTIUINL Tey eae tie Sera ate metre 2 che ul ciara capt e ces 39 
MUGS Nes ace iosiis Sees eetoe ¢ Se oltaae rsa meters 2 
_ INTRODUCTION. 
The earliest importation of date offshoots into the United States 
(a lot of 59 received through correspondence by the Department of 
Agriculture in July, 1890) was from Egypt. 
Kleven years passed before Mr. David Fairchild, Agricultural 
Explorer, of the Bureau of Plant Industry, visited Egypt and obtaimed 
offshoots of a number of the leading varieties. Small lots of Egyptian 
offshoots were secured through agents in later years, but the fact 
remained that the dates of Egypt, of which there are more than 
7,000,000 trees, were less thoroughly known to American experi- 
menters than those of any other great date-producing region. In 
the published lists of Egyptian dates there was much confusion and 
contradiction, and the identity of some of the more promising of 
the Egyptain varieties on trial at the Tempe and Mecca date gardens 
was in doubt. : 
These considerations induced the offices of Crop Physiology and 
Breeding Investigations and of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduc- 
tion to combine in sending the writer to Egypt and the Sudan in 
August, 1913. An account of the journey in these countries, from 
August, 1913, to February, 1914, is embodied in another paper, but 
the descriptions of 22 varieties of dates of Egypt and the Sudan, 
comprising most of the commercial dates of those regions, as well as 
of several varieties of minor importance not heretofore published, are 
assembled in this bulletin. | : 
96613°—Bull. 27115 —1 
