ADDRESSES 213 



Sufficient moisture gives, and gives the plough 

 Returns of weighty fruitage rich and ripe. 



Georgics, II. 



Why, cleave an olive tree's dry stump, and, strange 

 And wondrous strange to tell, an olive root 

 Will from the dry wood come! 



Frequently a whole village will unite and plant a grove 

 in common. Then not even the berries that fall to the 

 ground are allowed to be picked till a proclamation is is- 

 sued by the head man of the village or the governor of the 

 province. A tree yields from ten to fifteen gallons of oil, and 

 the profits are about one hundred dollars to the acre. It is 

 claimed that the tree bears only every other year; but this 

 is due probably to the vicious manner of gathering the fruit, 

 — beating the branches with long poles to shake off the 

 berries, and, in so doing, bruising and destroying the tender 

 buds that are setting for the next year's crop. 



The husks with which the prodigal son would fain have 

 filled his belly, and which Scripture says the swine did eat, 

 were not after all such very poor fare. Many a repentant 

 sinner might go farther and fare worse. They are the fleshy 

 pods of the locust tree, a leathery brown when fit to eat, 

 from six to eight inches in length, containing a spongy, 

 mealy pulp, of a sweet and pleasant taste in its ripened state, 

 and in which are imbedded a number of shining brown seeds, 

 very hard, and somewhat resembling a split pea. These 

 seeds are of no value whatsoever, on account of their bitter 

 flavor; but the sweet pulp of the pod, when dry, is exten- 

 sively used as an article of food, particularly among the 

 laboring classes. In Syria it is ground up into a coarse flour, 

 and a species of molasses made, which is used in the prepara- 



