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FRUITS IN THEIR SEASON. 125
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
¦ - - A » Vi. Data. Respecting Dates. Th...
for which . Is given in " The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby opened , " published In 1677 and which directs that ainong other sundries
, iC \ lb . dates" shmild be added to the principal ingredients of a "boiled cock infused in eight gallons of ale . The fruit seems
afterwards to have risen in price and also declined in public favor , for Phillips , writing in 1821 , says that at that time the best sort cost
five shillings _j > er _potind , though inferior kinds could be bought cheaper " for medicinal _jDurposesfor which they are chiefly used . "
, The trunk of the Phoenix ' dactylifera , as the date-palm is called by botanists , is a cylindrical column fifty or sixty feet high , and
from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter , its _ajDpearance evidencing _£ > lainlits mode of growthand showing that it is made up of
the remains y of former foliage . , The present leaves , which crown its summitare from eiht to twelve feet longshining , tapering , and
of feather , -like structure g each being composed , of a long double range of narrow leaflets , , growing alternately from the sides of a
central stalk , and forming an object not very obviously suggestive of military tacticsyet whichaccording to Plinyfirst gave the idea
of a troop of soldiers , presenting , face on both sides , at once . These leafletsnear the base end of the stalk , are sometimes three feet in
leng a a white sharp th , , yet black smooth do sp not leathery ine exceed or thorn kind an . inch of The sheath in leaves width which are , and at decay each first ing terminates _envelojDed after they in in
are unfoldedand assuming the form of , a web of brown fibres , is carefully collected , for the _jmrpose of making cordage . A tree
raised _from seed will not bear fruit until it has reached its sixteenth year the , roots but the of common full-grown mode trees of propagation and in this is case by taking the young shoots plant from
will begin to bear in the sixth , , and sometimes even in the third , year of its growth . The Phcenix is a dioecious tree , having what are
called the female organs of fructification upon one plant and the male upon in long another _Tbxuiches , but from in both the trunk cases the upon flowers a stalk , crowded between in the clusters leaves , gro , and _^
a-re _enwrapped in an enormous bract developed at their base , which is called a S _23 atheand which opens when they have reached maturity
and then withers . , A single bunch of male flowers contains about 12000 small colorless blossoms supported by little bracts and
composed , of three sepals , three petals , and six , or sometimes only three , stamensfor trinality is an endogen characteristic , and three , or a
multile , of threeis the number on which their organs of fructification are p almost inv , ariably formed , as those of exogens are upon the
numbers _Hve or four . On fruit-bearing trees the flowers are still smaller about the , and size in of their small centre there is seen being the three rudiments ovaries of the o f whi dates ch , ,
peas , , howeverbut one ripens . Nature provides that by some" means the wild trees , shall be dulimpregnated and become fruitfulbut when
under cultivation , alth ough the trees are still of the same , species ,
and the two kinds are always planted together , fructification cannot
Fruits In Their Season. 125
_FRUITS IN THEIR SEASON . 125
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1861, page 125, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041861/page/53/
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