DATE CULTURE IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN \) 
Plate 3, B, shows a typical old basket sewer, who deftly twists his 
thread from the shredded pinnae between the palms of his hands 
as he works and hides his stitches so neatly that the uninitiated can 
not tell how the basket is made. Plate 4, A, is from a photograph 
of a market-day scene outside a Fayum village, where literally an 
acre of baskets was sold to Cairo traders who had come out for the 
occasion. 
The second priming of the date palm takes off the broad leaf base 
below the gerid — a good stiff stick of fuel wood (a very precious 
commodity in Egypt) — and releases the thin, tough layers of the 
sheath, the " leef " of the natives, which is twisted by hand into 
2-stranded cord, some used in reinforcing the baskets, but much of 
which is shipped by carloads to the valley towns, there to be worked 
up on crude spinning machines into all sorts and sizes of rough but 
serviceable cordage. 
What are usually the by-products of the date tree have become of 
major importance. A prominent Fayum landholder frankly asserted 
that their seedling trees, with their outlet for the by-products, were 
as profitable as special varieties usually are in other districts, since 
the balady, or trees of the country, are more highly valued for their 
gerid than most of the cultivated varieties. The fruit is of course 
the chief item of value, poor as the dates of Fayum are; but the 
inferior seedling dates are all absorbed as a part of the scanty food 
supply of the crowded population of very poor land tillers. 
LEADING COMMERCIAL VARIETIES 
THE AMHAT DATE 
DESCRIPTION OF THE TREE AND FOLIAGE 
The following description of the tree and foliage of the Amhat 
variety is adapted from Department Bulletin No. 271 (12), prepared 
by the writer after his first journey to Egypt in 1913-14 (notes taken 
at Bedrashen and Abu Nemrus) : 
Trees of the Amhat variety are tall — the tallest known in Egypt — and have 
medium-heavy trunks and glaucous blue leaves 10% to 13% feet long, with bases 
of moderate width and rather stout ribs strongly rounded dorsally and decid- 
edly arched ventrally, giving unusual approach to a cylindrical cross section. 8 
The spine area is 2% to 4% feet, the medium-heavy spines from 2 to 3 inches 
long below to 8 or 9 inches in the upper ones and passing to stout spike pinnae 
23 to 27 inches long. The succeeding normal pinnae are 24 to 27 inches long, 
decreasing but slightly till near the apex, where they drop to 20, 17, and 
finally 14 inches. 
The pinnae range in width from 1*4 to 1% inches, only a few of the apical 
ones dropping to five-eighths or three-fourths of an inch broad, and they are 
rather firm and stiff throughout, with a thickness of 0.017 to 0.020 of an 
inch. The pulvini are from medium to heavy, a few being slenderly caudate 
and coalescent. 
The diversity of the angles of the pinnae gives a rather ragged appearance to 
the blade, and the position of the antrorse class keeps the valley of the blade 
rather narrow clear to the apex, a somewhat unusual feature. The analysis 
shows unusually low numbers of introrse pinnae and a correspondingly high 
proportion of the paired, antrorse-retrorse groups. 
8 For the S3 r steui of technical descriptions used, in the following pages, see U. S. Dept. 
Agr. Bui. 223 (11). 
10344—27 2 
