96 
THE DATE PALM FOE QUEENSLAND. 
Propagation. 
The best trees are produced from suckers from three to four 
years old, having an average weight of about Gib. Those raised 
from seed are much slower in maturing, and are generally poor. 
The sucker is taken from the foot of the stem of an adult tree ; 
when first planted it must be watered daily for six weeks, and on 
alternate days for another six weeks, after which the trees are 
watered once a w^eek in summer, and every month in winter. 
The nut does not commence to germinate until from six to 
twelve months after planting liave elapsed, and grows very slowly 
for the first twm years. The trees yield fruit in from five to six 
years, and are in full bearing at from twenty to twenty-five years, 
alter which they continue fruitful for about 150 years. Several 
bunches of flowers are formed in a season, each producing often 
as many as 200 dates. Select trees are recorded as having borne 
a crop worth £2, but the average may be put down at 4s. per tree 
annually, common kinds less than Is. A good date tree is 
sometimes exchanged for a camel in North Africa. 
Fecundation. 
“ In Algeria and all over the East,” says M. Cossona, 
a botanist who has studied the subject on the spot. “ towards 
the mouth of^ April the tree begins to flower, and then artifi- 
cial fecundation is practised extensively. The male spatlies 
are opened at the time when a sort of crackling is produced under 
the finger, which indicates that the pollen of the flowers in the 
cluster IS sufficiently developed, yet has not escaped from the 
anthers; the cluster is then divided into portions, each containing 
seven, or eight, blooms. Having placed these pieces in the hood 
of Ins burnous, the workman climbs to the summit of the female 
tree, supporting himself by a loop of cord passed round his loins, 
and at the same time round the trunk of the tree, and, liaviin^ 
split open the spatlm with a knife, he slips in one of the frag- 
ments, vliich he interlaces with the branches of the female 
c lister he fecundation of which is made certain.” Archer says 
that wild plants are fecundated by bees. The Arabs even keep 
the pollen from one year to another in case the male flower should 
fail the succeeding season. According to Watts the pollen is 
said to remain active for one or two months after its removal 
