DATE CULTURE IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN 59 
put together separately, where covers are used, and lashed on after 
the crate is filled. In offshoot packing both bottoms and covers 
were made secure with loops of stout wire, as the inside pressure 
tended to force the sides and bottoms apart where the spindles went 
through the holes in the rails. The permanent carrying crates used 
by the natives on their camels, donkeys, and carts are reinforced 
with wrappings of the handmade cord from the leef fiber. 
POSSIBILITIES OF CRATE MANUFACTURE IN AMERICA 
These details of the native methods of manufacture are given here 
to afford suggestions as to the requirements to be met under Amer- 
ican adaptations and conditions. 
In southern California, in the date-growing districts, the chief 
product calling for special containers is the Bermuda onion crop, 
which is packed in bushel folding crates of the Glimmer type. The 
1924 acreage in the Coachella Valley was approximately 1,400, re- 
quiring an average of 300 to 400 crates to the acre, or about 500,000 
crates. 
Each crate requires in construction 36 linear feet of stock five- 
eighths by seven-eighths inches, besides the top and bottom of 
three pieces each, one-fourth inch thick by 3 inches wide. To 
make the whole crate of date-leaf midribs would require approxi- 
mately 60 linear feet of stock of similar diameter, which would be 
furnished by 10 or 12 average leaves; that is, the annual primings 
from each bearing date palm would furnish the material for one 
crate or container of 1-bushel capacity. Some trees with extra-long 
straight leaves would do much better than that, but one crate per 
tree per year would be a conservative estimate. 
The writer has recently constructed two crates modeled after the 
folding onion-crate pattern from ribs of date-palm leaves grown 
at the United States Experiment Date Garden, Indio, Calif, (pi. 
11, A). Ordinary carpenters' tools were used, and the time con- 
sumed was naturally out of proportion to the regular price of 
factory-made pine crates of this pattern. In appearance and utility 
they are fully up to the standard of factory-made crates, while 
in durability they are much superior. Whether with the use of 
light wood-working machinery for cutting the midribs to proper 
lengths, dressing to size, and boring the holes for the corner* wires 
such crates could be made at prices to compete with the factory- 
made crates now brought in from the Southern States can be 
demonstrated only by actual trial. 
With a planting of 50 trees to the acre, which is the usual number, 
10,000 acres of date palms would furnish, as an otherwise waste 
product, leaf ribs enough to make crates for the average onion crop 
of the valley. At present rates of increase such a date-palm acreage 
will soon be reached and passed. When we consider the enormous 
development of the cantaloupe and lettuce industries in the Imperial 
Valley, Ave see a possible demand for sr)ecial crate manufacture for all 
of the date-leaf ribs that may be produced with the largest develop- 
ment of date growing that can be looked for in that and the Colorado 
Valley. 
Another type of crate to the making of which the date-leaf ribs 
are especially well adapted is that for shipping live poultry. The 
