THE DATE-PALM
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bearers; and they will bear at the age of five or six years, whereas those raised from seed produce dates only after they have attained an age of fifteen or twenty years.
But it is in a few nooks only of the Riviera that the date palm ripens its fruit, and that but occasionally, for the winter comes on before it has reached maturity, and it fails to acquire the flavour and sweetness which is attained in Africa. It cannot be said that the huge bunches of dates in their husks hanging on the trees, of a sickly yellow, are beautiful.
