A Palm-Grove Is Really A Beautiful Object, And Requires Scarcely Less Attention Than A Vineyard.

The trees are generally planted in a _quincunx_, or at times without any regular order; but at distances from each other of four or five yards.

The situation selected is mostly on the banks of some stream or rivulet, running from the neighbouring hills, and the more abundant the supply of water, the healthier the plants and the finer the fruit. For this tree, which loves a warm climate, and a sandy soil, is yet wonderfully improved by frequent irrigation, and, singularly, the _quality_ of the water appears of little consequence, being salt or sweet, or impregnated with nitre, as in the Jereed.

Irrigation is performed in the spring, and through the whole summer. The water is drawn by small channels from the stream to each individual tree, around the stalk and root of which a little basin is made and fenced round with clay, so that the water, when received, is detained there until it soaks into the earth. (All irrigation is, indeed, effected in this way.) As to the abundance of the plantations, the fruit of one plantation alone producing fifteen hundred camels' loads of dates, or four thousand five hundred quintals, three quintals to the load, is not unfrequently sold for one thousand dollars. Besides the Jereed, Tafilett, in Morocco, is a great date-country. Mr. Jackson says, "We found the country covered with most magnificent plantations, and extensive forests of the lofty date, exhibiting the most elegant and picturesque appearance that nature on a plain surface can present to the admiring eye. In these forests, there is no underwood, so that a horseman may gallop through them without impediment."

Our readers will see, when they come to the Tour, that this description of the palm-groves agrees entirely with that of Mr. Reade and Captain Balfour. I have already mentioned that the palm is male and female, or, as botanists say, _dioecious_; the Moors, however, pretend that the palm in this respect is just like the human being. The _female_ palm alone produces fruit and is cultivated, but the presence or vicinity of the _male_ is required, and in many oriental countries there is a law that those who own a palm-wood must have a certain number of _male_ plants in proportion. In Barbary they seem to trust to chance, relying on the male plants which grow wild in the Desert. They hang and shake them over the female plants, usually in February or March. Koempfe says, that the male flowers, if plucked when ripe, and cautiously dried, will even, in this state, perform their office, though kept to the following year.

The Jereed is a very important portion of the Tunisian territory, Government deriving a large revenue from its inhabitants. It is visited every year by the "Bey of the Camp," who administers affairs in this country as a sovereign; and who, indeed, is heir-apparent to the Tunisian throne.

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