'94 
THE DATE PALM FOR QUEENSLAND. 
25in, Mr, A. S. White, secretary of the Royal Geographical 
Society of Scotland, gives, in his work, the “ Development of 
Africa, ’ 1890, a map of the rainfalls in North Africa, Arabia, 
and Persia, which may be profitably referred to in this con- 
nection. Although the date requires a hot, dry climate, yet its 
roots must have access to moisture. And though it is essentially 
a tree belonging to desert regions, yet it is confined to the oases 
in the these deserts where water is found. It flourishes in rain- 
less countries, but only where there is moisture in the soil, 
either naturally or produced by irrigation. 
IrRIG.VTION .4ND O.iSES. 
The Oases of the Tableland,” writes Charles Martins in 
his Du Spitzberg au Sahara,’ “ are each watered by a stream 
or copious spring, and are but a short distance from the Medi- 
terranean region. The oasis of El Kantara is the first (Mangin) 
we met on leaving the Mediterranean region to penetrate to tlie 
Sahara through a ravine called ‘ The iMouth of the Desert.’ It 
is 1800ft. above sea level, and its temperature just suffices to 
enable the dates to ripen. The oases of the Valleys of Erosion 
•are watered by natural or artesian wells. An example is Ouargla, 
situated m a profound hollow. Tlie palms are planted at the 
rate of 1000 to 1100 a hectare (two acres). Outside the gardens 
grow some wild date palms, which yield a smaller crop, but 
whose truit is much more savoury. The Oases of the Sandy 
Desert need water. 'The trees are here planted in conical cavities 
hollowed by the hand of man, that their roots may strike down 
to the subterranean reservoir which is to nourish them. These 
cavities are 18ft., 2.5ft., or 80ft. deep. The slopes around these 
hollow gardens are stayed indifterently well by a matting of palm 
leaves. The wells are in the centre, and not deeper than 25ft. 
These oases have a very precarious existence, as a gust of wind 
may bury theni under an avalanche of sand. Every oasis is 
composed, in the mam, of palms, which seem to form a con- 
tinuous forest ; but m reality they are planted in rows and in 
gardens separated from one another by walls of earth, which 
are pierced with an aperture to admit of the entrance of the 
irrigating rill into the enclosed square. The soil employed in 
the construction of the walls is removed from the paths, wliich 
