Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-03-06
THE DATE PALM TREE.
Something of Its History and of Its Uses
and Cultivation.
Pr carnnal II Gerrish for the RFcnpD=IINIoN ]

ferring to Phenicia, where it grew, and
also to its habit of reproduction by sucker
ing dactylus and date from dachel, in q
Hebrew dialect a finger. 1t having nc
Sanskrit name, its cultivation in India is
supposed not to date from ancient times
The name used in Hindustan, khurma, is
Persian. The Hebrews called the tree
lamar, the Egyptians beg. Ritter saws that
the number OF names of the species in Per.
sian, Arabic and Berber is incredible, an
plying to fruit and cultivated varieties
These being different, attest to great anti
guilty in Asia and Africa.
Assyrian and Egyptian ruins, as also an
cient writings, show the date was plenty in
the region from the Nile to the Euphrates
Herodotus, before Christ 400 years, men,
tons the date tree, as also Strabo and Pliny
who said: They are planted of the
branches two cubits long, growing from
the top of the tree; also of slips and sliv-
ers about Babylon the very leaf, if it be
set, groweth."
1t being an easy matter to transport the
date, the stones were thrown in the soil
everywhere and terminated in damp places,
so the traveller finds the trees everywhere
trees springing up in Sacramento where
the stones have been thrown in the streets
during the rainy season.
The date is grown around the Mediterra-
mean Sea where the orange flourishes, but
does not bear, except in the south of Spain
where it was planted in the eighth century
by the conqueror Abd-el- Rahman. The
Mission fathers introduced it into Califor-
MIA from Spain. 1t has, however, been only
an ornamental tree, as the missions of Up
per California. being established near the
coast, there was too much dampness during
the dry season to ripen the fruit. In Lower
California, however, the date has always
been cultivated successfully, ripening its
fruit regularly.
In Sonoma county trees grow and flower
but as it has coast climate, it is, as at Los
Angeles, San Diego and Ventura, an orna-
mental tree only. j. r. Wolfskill, in Yolo
county, planted seeds in 1857, which in 1881
had ripe frIit-it having dry, clear, warm
climate, which is necessary to perfect the
berry. This demonstrates the interior val
leys to be the true date region of this State
The fruit is of no use unless grown during
rainless period, dryness being necessary
to perfect the fruit.
The date is lofty tree when full grown
sending up magnificent stem forty to
eighty feet high, the top crowned with
beautiful pinnated leaves six to ten feet
long, the panne two to three feet long and
an inch wide. The trunk is rough and
spiny the flower spattras spring from be-
tween the connection of the leaves and the
trunk, are woody and have branched
spadices. More than ten thousand flowers
have been counted on a single spadix 1t
flowers in April and the fruit is ripe in No
vember. Being di9cious, the pistils and
stamens occur in different trees. The
flowers of the (male) staminate tree have
six short stanens with narrow four-cor-
nered anthers, filled with pollen. The
pistillate tfemale) tree have roundish
germ. which afterwards becomes an oval
berry, with thick pulp. inclosing hard
oblong stone. This is that fruit known to
the commercial world as the date, upon
which so many millions entirely subsist.
A tree will produce from one hundred to
three hundred pounds in a season. " A
handful of dates and a gourd of water .
form the meal of the Arab in the desert
where no other tree will grow, irrigated by
water which is so salty as to kill any other
vegetation. This poor diet contains from SO
to 50 per per cent. of starchy sugar, the
same nutrition that rice contains. Buckle
says this diet produces the imaginative in
ciination TO the grotesque. Such food not
entirely satisfying hunger exercises control
over the imagination, making such stories
as they relate-the Arabian Nights y for
instance-possible. Peschel SAYS, This
biological fact was and still is the origin of
the 1igid HASTINGS prescribed by religions so
widely different, which are made use of by
shammers in every quarter of the world,
when they wish to enter into communion
ton with invisible powers" He adds,
however, that the date trains up indie
pendent and warlike desert tribes, which
have not the most remote mental relation
ship TO the rice eating Hindoos"
The fruit is sent to market packed in
packages made of dried palm leaves they
are gathered while ripe and soft and pressed
into these until it forms a pasty mass.
The s. gar the date contains preserves the
fruit But ii becomes in time dried and
hard: they are then steamed to make
them soft and eatable, but are not relished
in this condition by the Arabs. The taste
OF fresh dates, is said by Bernadier de ST.
Pierre, TO taste of sugar and cream favored
with orange blossom.
The date tree ispropagated from seeds and
suckers, which sprout from the trunk of the
tree near the roots. The stones of the dates
one can get from any fruit stand are the
seed of this celebrated tree. Soak the stones
in water two or three days to swell the
seed plant them upright in sandy soil
well mixed with old rotor manure and
common salt. In about six weeks the
young tree will appear above the ground,
like the white end of a quill from this a
sharp-polnteu spear Of grass will start and
grow about four inches; another will grow
from the inside of the first leaf and so on
until, at two years. the pinn@ will show on
the leaves, which will show the habits of
the matured tree. Each leaf, pressing
downward as it grows. joining the trunk,
for which reason on palm trees the trunk
should not be shaved smooth of the leaf
ends, as it tends to weaken the stem, re-
duce the diameter and dwarf the tree.
Nature will attend TO that better than man.
Indeed, Won Barstel who has a grove of
1000 date trees in Lower California MEX
lcol, says Nothing must be trimmed off
the young plants until they fruit, and even
then, with great care, only the dry and
wiihere6 leaves. Much sand, little
water, not too much salt, are necessary for
the first years. With plentiful irrigation,
the palm will thrive In soil that contains
even large quantities of alkali.
The suckers, called in Fegzen Maaeasa
should be taken off in warm weather and
kept well watered until they take root.
BY this means they get the same
fruit as the parent tree and also
in much shorter time, in five years,
whereas it takes from seed fifteen or twenty
years. Besides, there is no way to tell the
staminate from the pistillate trees, They
plant them Eve to eight feet apart. twenty
pistiiiate to one staminate tree. In trans
planting trees ten to fifteen years old /
have had good success by removing .haiYi
in the summer months, taking off all the
leaves except the five central ones and cut
ting off half the length of these, and every
day pouring a pailful of water over the
top Of the tree to keep it moist. With this
treatment they may be as easily trans
planted as any other tree. Be sure and
give them dressing of salt-it is the
manure for date tree, IS it is native OF q
saline soil.
Few like TO raise the date palm, as it
grows so slow. This is great disadvantage.
But as those which were planted years ago
mature, and suckers can be had, it will be