210 On the Soil, Productions, Sfc. of Palestine. 



ceptible of being fully restored to its ancient fertility. The valleys 

 produce wheat very well at present, and the tops of the mountains, 

 though utterly neglected, are covered with fine pasturage. 



But this is the proper region for the olive and the vine. Anciently 

 these hills were covered with orchards of fruit-trees and vineyards, 

 and the world does not probably produce finer grapes, figs, and olives, 

 than are annually gathered about Hebron and Bethlehem. One acre 

 of the flinty surface of the Mount of Olives, carefully tended in 

 olive-trees, would yield more, through the exchanges of commerce, 

 towards human subsistence than a much larger tract of the richest 

 Ohio bottoms tilled in corn. Most persons know little of the variety 

 and importance of the uses to which the fruit of the olive is applied 

 in the eastern nations, and in some of the southern countries of Europe. 

 Large quantities of the berries are used by the inhabitants and ex- 

 ported as food ; but the principal value of the olive consists in the 

 delicious oil that is extracted from its fruit. This is used upon the 

 table, and in cookery, as the substitute for both butter and lard. It 

 is universally burned in lamps, and instead of candles, which are 

 nearly unknown in the east. It is the principal material employed 

 in making soap, and it is exclusively used in lubricating machinery 

 in all the great manufacturing establishments in the world. The 

 products of the vine and fig tree, besides entering largely into the 

 food of the people, become also the basis of trade in a variety of 

 forms, preserved and manufactured. To an American, whose diet 

 is composed of bread, animal food, and vegetables, it seldom occurs 

 to think of fruits, however delicious and abundant, as common arti- 

 cles of food ; and the " oil and wine," the fig-trees and pomegranates 

 of the Promised Land, are little intelligible, excepts as terms typical 

 of general fruitfulness and fertility. They were to the Israelites, 

 however, as they still are to the people of many parts of the east, 

 what our corn and wheat fields are to us, and as the basis of com- 

 merce, what our tobacco, rice, and cotton fields are. The *' hill 

 country" of Judah, now the worst part of Palestine, was precisely 

 adapted, in soil and climate, to the growth of these important staples, 

 and they made it, perhaps, the most wealthy and populous part of the 

 land. In those portions of the south of France adapted to the olive 

 and vine, the proprietors of the soil cannot afford to devote it to any 

 other species of culture ; and I often heard it said there, that if the 

 vineyards and oliveyards yielded a fair crop only once in two or 

 three years, it was still the most profitable species of agriculture in 

 which they could engage. In one wealthy and populous department, 

 not ill adapted to the growth of wheat, it is estimated that only 

 enough grain is grown to supply the inhabitants six weeks in the 

 year. The rest is imported from other parts of the country, where 

 these precious fruits do not attain to such perfection. I can see no 

 reason why the replanting of the fruit trees and vineyards of the 



