VALUE OF THE DATE PALM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10536, 10 August 1912, Page 1

VALUE OF THE DATE PALM.

It Is to the Arata What Wheat Is to Other People. ("Baker's Weekly.") The date palm with its fruit is one of the most interesting trees with which the botanist is acquainted* What wheat is in some countries and maize and rice in others the date palm is to the Arabs.

Its native home is the region between Senegal on tho west coast of Africa and the River Indus in Asia from about tho fifteenth to about tho thirtieth parallel of north latitude. At various times it has besn carried outside these limits, but with little suocess as a fruit bearer. As an ornamental tree, however, it will grow in many situations where it cannot produce seed, and hence it is frequently transplanted•'' from its native region. Along the shores of the Mediterranean it is a common object, for its leaves are in groat request in the Christian countries of South Europe on Palm Sunday. It is the common palm of Palestine, being here also grown for ornament, although it rarely ripens fruit, except at Jericho, which from the circumstance of its success there has acquired the 'name of " the city of Palm Trees." It is also a curious fact that its cultivation has prospered in the isolated Canary Islands, off the West African coast.

THE DATE PALM IS A BEAUTIFUL OBJECT in the landscape, growing to the height of sixty or eighty feet; not in that stiff, straight manner in which palm trees are so often painted, but slightly bent into graceful curves and sweeps. The trunk is marked with the old scars where the leaves fall off when their work Is done and is crowned with a spreading mass of from forty to eighty leaves, each of which resembles a gigantic feather. Easy of growth its seeds germinate if casually thrown on the damp earth by some river or spring, or even in the fissures of the rocks where moisture lingers. In twelve years it will grow to the height of fifty feet with its crown of leaves and flowers.

Imagination can scarcely picture what would happen if the date palm should be visited with such destruction as sometimes befalls wheat, rice and vines. Thousands of human beings in Upper Egypt, Arabia and Persia" rely upon it as the principal source of their food, and a man's wealth is reckoned by the number of date palms which he possesses. In Fczzau for nine months of the year the natives live upon its delicious fruit. Those who only know the date from the dried specimens of the fruit shown beneath a label, in shop windows, can hardly imagine how delicious it is when eaten fresh and in Central Arabia.

_ In addition to beincr eaten fresh, half ripe or wholly ripe, the fruit is dried, either in a whole state or POT7NDED INTO CAKES solid enough to be cut with a hatchet. In this fonn it plays an important part in the provisions for a journey; more important, indeed, than the pemmican of the American Indian, for not only is it the food of the men who traverse the sandy desert plains in caravans, but it is also the sustenance of the horses and camels. And from the stones thrown heedlessly away on euch journeys no doubtmany a palm arises in the waste to guide and chem- the travellers in future years. The stones, however, are not always rejected, but are ground up for their oil and the refuse is given as food to the cattle.

But the fruit is net the only produce* of the date palm which is of use to man. The younsr leaves are en ton as ?>alm cabbage and a wine is prepared rom the snp. A single tree will yield three or four quarts dnilv for two weeks before the c 'ipply falls and the tre n withers up. The entire leaves afford thatch for the dwellings; basrs and mats are made of the leaflets; the footstalks are woven into baskets or used as fuel; the fibre nipnlics cordage; the trunk yields wood for the frhmework of the house and for the furniture.

As the da'" n.iV grew in Palestine in early Christian days as now, it is not surprising that it has entered into folklore. It is said to have been one of the woods which formed the cross. Sir John Mandeville, the famous traveller and wondermonger, states that cypress, palm and olive furnished the materials. Notwithstanding this sad use. it w.as regarded as one of the lucky trees to dream of.