Beginning of its cultivation is uncertain, but not ancient. It was introduced for cultivation in South America by the Dutch in 1718.
=Date or Date-Palm= (_Phœnix dactylifera_), a tree sixty to eighty feet high, with large pinnate leaves, cultivated in immense quantities in north Africa, western Asia and southern Europe. The stem is covered with leaf scars, and the flowers each have three sepals and three petals. The wood of the stem is used in building; huts are built of its leaves; the petioles are made into baskets and the fibre surrounding their bases into ropes and coarse cloth; the young leaf-bud or “cabbage” is sometimes eaten as a vegetable, or, if tapped, it yields a sugary sap which may be fermented; and even the seeds are ground into meal for camels. In central Arabia and some parts of north Africa the fruit forms the staple food of the inhabitants, camels, horses, and dogs. It is the chief source of wealth in Arabia. It was very anciently cultivated in Egypt and Babylonia and is the _palm_ of the Bible.
=SCENES IN THE PRODUCTION OF THE COFFEE BERRY=
[Illustration: =THE COFFEE PLANT IN FLOWER=]
[Illustration: =FROM FLOWER TO RIPE “CHERRIES”=]
[Illustration: =METHOD OF DRYING COFFEE ON WOODEN TRAYS IN THE OPEN AIR, AS STILL PRACTICED IN ARABIA AND OTHER ORIENTAL COUNTRIES=]
[Illustration: =WOMEN OF JAVA HULLING COFFEE=
The “cherries” when gathered contain two seeds, or coffee beans. The coverings are removed from the seeds by “hulling.”]
[Illustration: =SIZING, OR SORTING THE COFFEE BEANS FOR THE MARKET BY PASSING THEM THROUGH SIEVES MESHES=]
=Fig= (_Ficus Carica_). The common fig is a native of the East. It is a low deciduous tree or shrub (fifteen to twenty-five feet), with large, deeply-lobed leaves, which are rough above and downy beneath. The branches are clothed with short hairs, and the bark is greenish. The fruit is produced singly in the axils of the leaves, is pear-shaped, and has a very short stalk; the color in some varieties is bluish-black; in others, red, purple, yellow, green or white. The fig is extensively cultivated in subtropical countries, particularly in Spain, Italy, and southern France, in Europe, and in southwestern Asia. It is also grown in the Gulf States and in California. All dried figs in the United States are produced in California. Commercial figs come largely from Asiatic Turkey, though Smyrna figs are now established in California.