DATE PALMS are met with in almost every part of the south of Asia. In the Peninsula of India, the wild date, Phcenix sylvestris, shoots up in every dip of ground, and it is comnion in portions of the Dacca, Mimensing, and Sunderbun districts. When not stunted in its growth by the extraction of its sap, it is a very handsome tree, rising to 30 or 40 feet in height, with a dense crown of leaves spreading in a hemispherical form on its summit. The leaves are from 10 to 15 feet long, and composed of numerous leaflets or pinules about 18 inches long ; the fruit is only about one fourth the size of the Arabian variety. The cul tivators of the true date tree, Phcenix dactylifera, in Arabia, fertilize the clusters of HOssoins in the female trees, by taking the stamina of the flowers of the male plant and placing them in the centre of each Ouster of blossoms. In some parts of Arabia, however, the male trees are planted to windward, and the pollen, wafted by the wind, fertilizes the blossoms in all the trees in the gardens. The culture of the date is of great antiqnity. It was emblematic of the Jewish nation. Jericho was the city of palm trees. The date palm was familiar to the Egyptians B.C. 2378. It is first seen in Baby lonian monuments B. C. 1500, and first appears on the Assyrian monuments B.C. 858. A recent writer has supposed the date to be the conical figure on the top of the thyrsus of Bacchus. This fruit, according to Pliny, wa,s consecrated to the worship of almost every heathen divinity ; and the date palm is the sculptural emblem of all that is dignified, beautiful, and good, and entered largely into the ornamentation of temples. In India, the Phcenix sylvestris is used solely for the palm juice extracted from it. The process of tapping and extracting the juice goes on all the year round, but in Bengal it is continuous from the 1st Novem ber to the 15th of February. Some days pre viously, the lower leaves of the crown are stripped off all round, and a few extra leaves from the side of the tree intended to be tapped. On the
part thus denuded a triangular incision is made with a knife, about an inch deep, so as to penetrate through the cortex and divide the sap vessels, one point of the triangle downwards, into which is inserted a piece of grooved bamboo, in order to direct the sap into an earthen pot suspended underneath it by a string. The pots are suspended in the evening, and, when sugar has to be made, aro removed very early the following morning, ere the sun has sufficient heat to warm the juice, ' which would cause it immediately to ferment, and destroy its quality of crystallizing into sug,ar. The cutting being made in the afternoon in Bengal, next morning the pot is found to contain, from a full-grown tree, 10 seers of juice, the second morning 4 seers, and the third morning 2 seers of juice ; the quantity exuding afterwards is so small, that no pot is suspended for the next four days. Tbe boiling apparatus consists of a hole of about 3 feet in diameter, sunk about 2 feet in the ground, over which are supported by mud arches four thin earthen pans of a semi-globular shape, and 4 inches in diameter ; the hole itself is the furnace, and has two apertures on opposite sides for feeding in the fuel and for the escape of the smoke. The fire is lit so soon as the juice is collected and poured into the four pans, which are kept con stantly supplied with fresh juice as the water evaporates, until the whole produce of the morning is boiled down to the required density. As the contents of each pan become sufficiently boiled, they are ladled out into other earthen pots or jars of various sizes, from 5 to 20 seers of contents, according to the local custom, and in these the boiled extract cools, crystallizes into a hard com pound of granulated sugar and molasses, and is brought to market for sale as goer. By subse quent processes the goor is deprived more or less of its molasses and impurities. A Persian poem celebrates the Arabian date pahn, Phceuix dacty lifera, and its 360 uses. -