Date Palm

a fruit-bearing palm tree, ranging from the Canary Islands, through North Africa and Arabia, to India. The date palm is a lofty tree, thirty to one hundred feet in height. It bears clusters of 150 to 200 plum dates. A bunch weighs 20 to 25 pounds. A tree yields from 10 to 30 clusters a year. Dates are rich in sugar. The dried dates of commerce contain half their own weight of sugar. Dates are the principal production of the Arabs, and are their chief article of diet. Cakes of dried dates are their food on caravan trips. Deprive the Arab of the camel and the date, and vast sections of country would be depopulated. It is the chief plant of the oases of the Sahara. The crown of the tree is eaten as a palm cabbage; a fermented liquor is made from the fruit, and also from the sap. Baskets, bags, mats, wicker work, fans, walkingsticks, and ropes are made of the leaf-stalks, leaf-blades, and fiber. Portions of southern California and Arizona, dependent on irrigation and farthest removed from the cooling influence of the sea, have been found well adapted to date culture and have begun even to make shipments to the trade. See Palm