DATE CULTURE IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN 69 
The five Libian oases, watered from artesian wells, comprising the 
second varietal region, have from very early times made the export- 
ing of dates to the Nile Valley their chief point of contact with the 
outside world. The Saidy date, now their main dependence, was 
listed by the explorer Cailliaud, visiting Siwa and Baharia in 1819, 
when its commercial prominence indicated a much earlier origin, 
with local history pointing to its introduction from the Said, or 
Upper Egypt, in the fifteenth century. 
The third region of varietal culture is a broken stretch of very 
narrow Nile bottoms, beginning about Aswan and reaching to the 
border of the tropical rain belt below Khartum. 
The region from Giza Province to Aswan, with the scarcely de- 
tached Fayum, has immense agricultural wealth, producing unfail- 
ing crops of sugar cane and grains, having about 4,000,000 taxed 
date palms, mostly of indifferent seedling quality, yet with a soil 
and climate capable of producing export dates equal to any in the 
world. 
Out of a considerable list of Nile Valley date varieties only six 
have attained commercial importance. The Hayany, consumed in 
great quantities in the fresh rutab stage, heads the list in impor- 
tance, supplemented by a growing production of the Amhat. A 
small export trade in the Amri variety is more than offset by impor- 
tations from Tunis and Mesopotamia. 
The Saidy of the Libian Oases, introduced as " Sewi " into Giza 
Province, a packing date of first quality and a long keeper, is packed 
in a crude manner and entirely consumed in densely populated Lower 
Egypt. The greatest possible expansion of Egyptian date culture lies 
in the planting of this variety in the middle Nile Valley, and the 
development of modern packing methods which will place it among 
the world's finest commercial dates. 
The Barakawi of Sukkot and Dongola, known down the river as 
;i Sukkoti," but more commonly as " Ibrimi," is perhaps the world's 
all-round best dry date. Until the world's white population learns 
to appreciate the merits of fine dry or bread dates, the markets for 
this excellent food product must be found, as now, among the native 
peoples of the interior. 
The Bentamoda is a date of excellent dessert qualities, but for 
reasons not yet clear its culture has been largely confined to the 
gardens of the wealth}^, and the fruit has found little place in com- 
merce. 
Some ideas new to American date culture have been outlined, 
perhaps the most important of these being the Egyptian commercial 
traffic in unopened male spathes, supplied to the garden owners for 
pollinating their palms. 
Egypt, with more than 12,000,000 people and no deciduous forests, 
allows nothing to go to waste. Aside from the fruit, every part of the 
date palm has a value made possible by a surplus of low-priced labor. 
The strong, elastic midribs of the great date leaves are made into 
crates and containers of many sizes for many purposes, with patient 
skill by poorly paid hand labor. American date palms, like those in 
Eg} T pt, must be pruned by removing 12 to 20 lower leaves each year. 
Shall these become a troublesome waste product, or can machinery 
replace hand labor and profitably convert these thousands of mid- 
