DATE CULTURE IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN 47 
Pictures of pleasure gardens with unmistakable figures of date palms 
surrounding a small pool or lake in the center are found in some of 
the tombs of the nobles near Queen Hatsu's temple at Thebes, of the 
period of about 1500 or 1450 B. C. In one spirited picture the noble 
lord and his lady are seated in a boat with two tow ropes and being 
drawn about the lake by slaves, while others are picking very red 
dates for them from a tree growing on the bank. 
Archaeologists state that in recent excavations at Tel el Amarna, in 
Upper Egypt, pertaining to a period about 1430 B. C, large quanti- 
ties of date seeds were found in the ru : ns of the dwellings, probably 
from dates stored for food, of which the weevils had left nothing but 
the seeds. With the tenacity with which the modern Egyptian 
clings to ancient agricultural practices, such as the wooden plow and 
the " shadoof " for lifting irrigation water, it can hardly be doubted 
that the idea that certain male date palms give superior results when 
used in the pollination of their favorite fruiting varieties is of very 
ancient origin. 
Brown (^, vol. 5, p. 77) has the following to say about the quan- 
tity of pollen required : 
A male inflorescence of average size is reckoned as being sufficient to polli- 
nate all the fruit-bearing bunches of five palms which are ready for fertiliza- 
tion on one day. Some trees, of course, require more pollen than others. The 
early bunches of any variety are larger than those which come later in the 
season and therefore require more pollen. The quantity of male flowers re- 
quired is not, however, regulated entirely by the size of the fruiting bunch. 
Some varieties require much more pollen than others, irrespective of the 
above consideration. For example, it is necessary to use much more on the 
Siwi than on the Ainhat. although the bunches of the latter are equal in size 
to those of the former and contain as many fruits. 
Brown also states that the date growers of Upper Egypt use a 
greater quantity of male flowers than do those of Lower Egypt, con- 
sequently requiring a higher proportion of male to female trees. 
About 1 male to 50 female trees, he states, is the usual proportion 
maintained in Lower Egypt. 
As to the size of the bunches making any difference in the quantity 
of male flowers required, when one considers the almost infinite num- 
ber of pollen grains contained in a single " finger " of male flowers a 
difference of a few dozen or so of a hundred fruiting flowers in a 
bunch could make no difference in the resulting fecundation, and late 
bunches on a tree which have been subject only to " catch pollina- 
tion " often set as many dates as the earlier ones pollinated with the 
greatest care. 
As to the relative quantities of pollen required by different varie- 
ties, this in the end must depend on the relative vitality of the pollen 
used and on their compatibility with the different fruiting varieties. 
At the United States Experiment Date Garden, Indio, Calif., it was 
repeatedly demonstrated by culture tests made by Stout (19) that 
pollen from different trees, though produced in abundance, might 
vary in viability from zero to nearly 100 per cent. Again it has been 
demonstrated by the writer during the season of 1924 that with pollen 
of high viability, used on the same day on different varieties, the per- 
centage of fecundation might vary from 10 or 12 to as high as 85 or 
90 per cent — purely a matter of compatibility between male and 
female varieties. 
