46 BULLETIN 1457, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
with shreds of fiber stripped also from the spathe. The pollinators 
themselves usually do this work of making up the little bundles, but 
Edward Jackson, on his 120-feddan plantation at Mansurcoti, realiz- 
ing that the girls and women with their nimble fingers are more cleft 
than the men, turned this work over to them, with very satisfactory 
results. 
The pollinator fills a little basket,- suspended from his neck, with 
the bundles of flowers and starts on his morning rounds in search of 
newly opened female flower heads. He carries a sickle-edged knife 
with a curved blade to help him clear his way in the palm top, but 
his skill in avoiding the leaf spines is marvelous. While he is up in 
the tree top, if he finds a spathe which is full and plump, nearly ready 
to burst, he pulls it open and pollinates it with the others by merely 
wedging one of the bundles between the strands of the flower head. 
With the dry air and scorching winds to which this country is sub- 
ject, this method of bunching the flower stems probably has a real 
advantage. 
SELECTION OF MALE TREES 
Some gardeners were found who contended that a good male date 
tree was equally good for the pollination of all varieties of dates, but 
the general opinion was that for. each variety there were males 
specially adapted. Most gardens contained favorite male trees which 
the owner believed to be especially fitted for the pollination of his 
most abundant variety, though surplus pollen might be used for 
others. In a garden above Giza a male that was recommended as 
the correct " dakar " for use on the Sewi (Saidy) variety was, on 
close questioning, alleged to be a Sewi mantour, or seedling. 
It is a very significant fact that with a purchase of 50 offshoots 
each of Gondeila, Bentamoda, and Barakawi varieties, shipped from 
the Sukkot region below the Third Cataract of the Nile, each lot 
came with 5 additional offshoots labeled " Gondeila Dakar," " Ben- 
tamoda Dakar," and " Barakawi Dakar," respectively. The growers 
in Dongola Province often make sharp discrimination in mating the 
different male and female palms, but their chief reasons are difficult 
to understand. For example, they asserted that the pollen of a cer- 
tain male tree was " too hot " for use on palms of a certain female 
variety, causing them to drop their young fruit. 
With vigor of growth and flower production assumed, together 
with potency of the pollen, there would still remain three other 
factors necessary to render a given male specially adapted to the 
pollination of any particular fruiting variety, namely: (1) Season- 
ableness, flowering at a time to meet the requirements of the fruiting 
variety; (2) compatibility, that indefinable adaptation in the rela- 
tions between the male and female individuals in the plant and 
animal world by which fecundity is assured; and (3) least under- 
stood of all, that degree of congruity which secures the best quality 
in the fruit resulting from a given pollination. Probably the fellah 
date gardener has never definitely formulated the second and third 
of these requirements in his mind, although he may unconsciously 
recognize them. 
The unwritten Egyptian lore regarding the date palm and its 
practical culture is the accumulation of no less than 4,000 years. 
