The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-01-14
Pionsef rUs sesds Tho His Pocket s'
 Dinner in Frisco.

8tou0o6 EUC B01oB 44po 61o &oS8US NC Dinner in Frisco.
 Phoenix (Ariz.) Correspondence of Baiti-
 more Sun.
 The Arabian dates grown in the Salt River Valley at the Government Experi- ment Station and sent to Secretary Hitch cock for the dsIectation of the President and his Cabinet. as mentioned in The Suns Washington dispatches recently, were by no means the first dates grown in Arizona. Giant trees sprouted from the seed and brought into fruition marked
 successful experiments in that line. which attracted the attention of the govern ment officials and induced them to try the
 importation of the Arabian stocks or
 suckers which are now coming into bear ing.
 It was by a curious accident that the firgt date trees were grown here. One Of the pioneer residents of the Salt River Valley was visiting ift San Francisco twenty years ago. One evening some inn ported dates were passed around at
 social gathering at which he was a guest. The polite disposition of the date pits bothered him for few minutes, until he decided not to swallow them or throw
 them on the carpet, but to put them in
 his pocket. When he returned to Phoenix some weeks later his wife discovered the 0SbO p1t8 Sttu ESpobattE III GnG CoNt pOChOts
 where he had placed them. When she was told what they were and how they came to be there, she was inspired to plant them, to see if they would grow. With no idea that fruit would ever | come Of it, the date pits were planted and carefully tended. As was natural in an
 irrigated country, the planting was done along a ditch through which water was
 distributed from the canal to the thirsty
 land. The seeds sprouted and became an
 article of commerce as is the fresh grape
 from the raisIn.
 Some of the punches of dates attain
 a weight of forty to fifty pounds, and a half dozen may grow on a tree. It is common for a tree to bear 100 pounds of fruit in a season. Ordinarily the trees
 bear fruit every othe year, although some | are known to bear every year, with an occasional exception.
 It has been said of the date tree that
 it must have It's head in the fire and
 its roots in the water" or, in other words,
 be grown in an arid region with little rainfall, but with an abundance of moist ure at the roots. These conditions are | found in the Salt River Valley, and for l that reason the government has estab- I Iished an experimental farm of ten acres ! there. devoted exclusively to date-palm | culture. As the dates do not grow true
 to seed, following the habit of other fruits
 in that respect, 1t has been found mOre
 satisfactory to grow the palms from suckers.
 These were brought from Arabia, plant | ed, and now some of the varieties are
 maturing fruit. As there are only a limit
 ed number of suckers from each tree, in
 order to establish the date-growing indus try on a large scale it will be necessary
 to import large numbers of the suckers.
 This cannot be done with success until
 the experiments now being carried on
 show which varieties will do best in their new environment.
 Tn the case of seeding trees, the plants
 may be cultivated for several years, until
 they blossom, before it can be determin-
 ed to which sex they belong. and then the
 variety may not be good one. The sex
 of sucker is the same as the plant from
 which 1t Is taken, so that once the desira.
 bIe variety Is determined it is only a
 question of removing the suckers and
 planting them in order to perpetuate 1t.