FRUIT IN OLD AGE. 207 
real age we are able to ascertain, according to 
M. de Chateaubriand, a very satisfactory proof. 
When Palestine was overrun by the Turks, in 
the year 1075, the Olive-trees then standing were 
to pay a tax of a small portion of their produce 
to the conquerors, while all that should be after- 
wards planted were to forfeit half their fruit to 
the Sultan. Now, the Olive-trees in question 
only pay the small tax, and it is therefore highly 
probable that they existed when the Turks 
entered Palestine, and are therefore eight hundred 
years old, or nearly that. Hence for eight hun- 
dred years these trees have yielded fruit for the 
service of man. Could each year’s produce be 
ascertained, how many tons of Olives would the 
entire sum for this period shew! Again, when 
Baron Humboldt visited the giant Dragon-tree of 
Orotava, he writes of it, “ It still bears every year 
both fruit and leaves. Its aspect feelingly recals 
to my mind that eternal youth of nature which is 
an inexhaustible source of motion and of life.” 
Yet this tree cannot be much under two thousand 
years old, and is probably older considerably even 
than that. 
Another year has gone by and left its seal upon 
