The 2007 Periscope - The Story of Dates

Part I of the story of the date industry in the United States dealt with the antiquity of date cultivation, a synopsis of the early history of the date industry in the United States, and stories of the transplanting of this ancient cultivated plant to a new continent. Early experiments with planting date seeds had proved unsuccessful and by the early 1900's local farmers realized that they needed to import actual offshoots of good commercial varieties of dates from Africa and the Middle East. How to make these imports thrive was anyone's guess. There were no textbooks to follow. Our story continues with the support of this fledgling industry received from the US government and from scientists working at major universities. It is a unique and fascinating tale. Coachella Valley Historical Society, 2007, 40 pages, paperback