6 BULLETIN 1457, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
In a carefully prepared account of the resources of the country 
about Aswan by Sir Gardner Wilkinson (#8, vol. 2, p. 290) occurs 
this statement : 
But the dates still retain the reputation they enjoyed in the days of Strabo, 
and the palm of Ibreem is cultivated and thrives in the climate of the First 
Cataract. * * * The best dates are the Ibreemee. All cultivated palms 
are reared from shoots ; those produced from the stone, in spite of cultivation 
bearing bad and wild fruit. 
Later, after describing the sterile character of the Xubian sand- 
stone country and the precarious living which the people derive from 
the narrow and interrupted bits of Nile bottom land, the same 
author (22, vol. 2, p. 304) proceeds : 
The palm tree, which there produces dates of very superior quality, is to 
them a great resource, both in the plentiful supply it affords for their own use 
and in the profitable exportation of its fruit to Egypt, where it is highly 
prized, especially that of the Ibreemee kind. The fruit of this is much larger 
and of better flavor than of other palms, and the tree differs in the appearance 
of its leaves, which are of a finer and softer texture. 
Still later he states (p. 322) : 
The district about Derr, on the east bank, abounds in date trees ; and between 
that town and Korosko they reckon 20,000 that are taxed. 
In her delightful account of a journey by " dahabeeyah " in 1873- 
1874, Amelia B. Edwards {9, p. 356) makes the following statement : * 
The palms of Derr and of the rich district beyond were the finest we saw 
throughout the journey. Straight and strong and magnificently plumed, they 
rose to an average height of 70 or 80 feet. 4 * * * These superb plantations 
supply all Egypt with saplings and contribute a heavy tax to the revenue. 
* * * The fruit, sun dried and shriveled, is also sent northward in large 
quantities. * * * The trees are cultivated with strenuous industry by the 
natives, and owe as much of their perfection to laborious irrigation as to cli- 
mate. The foot of each separate palm is surrounded by a circular trench into 
which the water is conducted by a small channel nbout 14 inches in width. 
Every palm grove stands in a network of these artificial runlets. * * * The 
reservoir from which they are supplied is filled by means of a sakkieh, or water 
wheel. * * * These sakkiehs are kept perpetually going, and are set so 
close just above Derr that the writer counted a line of 15 within the space of 
a single mile. There were probably quite as many on the opposite bank. 
Whether or not " saplings " in the above account refers to offshoots, 
or " shettla," it is a fact that to this day small lots of offshoots of the 
Sukkot varieties find their way down the river to gardens about 
Aswan and even as far as Luxor. 
Martins (10) makes a citation from Raffeneau-Delile {17), who 
refers to the " Ibrimy " taking its name from " urbe Ibrim " as the 
date most highly praised from Aswan. His description of the soft 
and flexible character of the leaves of this variety, as compared to 
the Egyptian date palms, coincides perfectly with the present writer's 
description of the leaves of the Barakawi, published in Department 
Bulletin No. 271 ( 12) from notes made at Merowe in Dongola 
Province in September, 1913. 
The character of the fruit brought down the river to Cairo from 
various points in Upper Egypt under the name " Ibrimi " shows a 
good deal of variation from the true Barakawi, or Sukkoti, type. 
This suggests that a condition exists similar to that among the Hay- 
4 The beauty of the palms at Derr in the early morning light was one of the most 
striking features of the writer's steamer journey from Haifa to Shellal, in April, 1925. 
