Page 202 - UAE Truncal States

The Traditional Economics

trees are planted in a garden. Therefore pollination cannot be left to
insects or to the wind; it has to be done every spring by hand.23
A dale palm growing in the wild is a bush, not a tree. It is only by
cutting off the outside branches that the successive new inner
branches are forced to sprout at an ever greater height. Eventually a
trunk is formed on which the stumps of the cut-off branches form
convenient footholds for the men who have to climb up to the crown
of the mature tree to pollinate the panicles or to harvest the dates.
The size of the tree, the quality of its fruit, and the time of ripening
all depend on the variety of palm, on the geographical location of the
date garden, and above all on the amount of water available.
Countless varieties are distinguished by Arab dale cultivators, while
within the Trucial States people had according to the Gazetteer
names for over three dozen varieties.2*1
Even under the more favourable conditions in Buraimi and Ra’s al
Khaimah dales are picked before they are fully ripe because they
would shrivel up in the intense heat and not retain their juicy
plumpness if left to ripen on the trees. Therefore most locally grown
dates are eaten fresh when about half the length of the fruit has
turned transparent and sweet. Dates can be preserved by boiling for
use later in the year. The total production of dales in the Trucial
Stales rarely met the requirements of the population, particularly
when in the first decades of this century an ever growing proportion
of the population took up pearling as an exclusive occupation,
established themselves in the coastal ports and no longer took any
interest in the date palms. According to the Gazetteer during the six
years from 1899 to 1905 dates were imported representing an annual
value of over £20,000 Sterling. They came mostly from Turkish Iraq
and from Persian ports. But a small percentage of the date crop of the
area was “exported" in the sense that some of the nomadic tribes
such as the Manahll and Rashid, who only occasionally visited the
Trucial States, bought dales from the Buraimi oasis and even from
the inhabitants of the Liwa. Nomadic groups such as those Manaslr
who did not own gardens came to the Liwa villages during the
summer and helped with the date harvest in exchange for payment in
kind.

Gardens irrigated by aflaj
Throughout the Trucial States the majority of date gardens were
planted in locations where irrigation by a falaj (pi. aflaj) was
possible. The important oases such as Buraimi, Mahadhah, Daid, and
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