1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 219 



mercial point of view. It is the shrub oak, — the Quercus 

 mgilojps, — which, growing wild on the mountain slopes and 

 rugged steeps, where nothing else will grow, gives employ- 

 ment to hundreds of men, women and children, who, in the 

 season, go out to gather the acorns. These are brought down 

 in sacks to the nearest sea-port, whence they are exported, 

 thousands of tons annually, under the name of " valonia," 

 to be used in the tanneries of Europe. They readily com- 

 mand eighty dollars to ninety dollars a ton ; and, from the 

 sea-port towns of Smyrna and the islands adjacent, forty thou- 

 sand tons have been sent to England alone in a single year. 



The cereals of the empire do not differ much from ours. 

 The exports are barley, maize and wheat. Rye, oats and 

 millet give good results, and there are various other seeds 

 of good native use. Looking only at the soil, climate, in- 

 dustrial population and the rivers and coasts of her great 

 inland seas, Turkey ought to be our formidable rival in the 

 markets of Europe ; but her state of paralysis is such that 

 nothing is to be apprehended from that quarter. Destructive 

 treaties with England, and stupid legislation on the part of 

 her own government, have reduced her to a state of hope- 

 less bankruptcy. 



Turkish agriculture and horticulture furnish nil that the 

 heart could wish in the shape of edible vegetables. All that 

 we produce is there produced, with the exception of potatoes, 

 which are imported from Europe : squashes of various kinds, 

 and measure unlimited; okra, spinach, celery; melons, un- 

 rivalled in flavor and size; cucumbers of any length you 

 choose. 



The people of the East eat hardly any meat, but live 

 almost wholly on vegetables. The same regimen that made 

 the three Israelitish captives at the Babylonian court so much 

 fairer and fatter than those fed on the king's meat, seems to 

 agree remarkably with the people now. Given a little rice, 

 some unleavened bread, a few olives, a cucumber cut up with 

 garlic and seasoned with oil, and a pound or two of grapes 

 or other fruit, and you produce those miracles of strength to 

 be found in the Turkish porters, who, adjusting the burden 

 to the pack they carry on their backs, walk off with a load of 

 from five to seven hundred pounds, and make nothing of it. 



