Where fig trees are planted

The earth required to be brought in from a distance, retaining walls erected, the steep slopes converted into a series of gentle inclinations, the mountain-torrent diverted or restrained, and the means of artificial irrigation, to sustain nature during the long droughts of summer, obtained. By the incessant labour of centuries this prodigy has been completed, and the very stony sterility of nature converted into the means of heightening, by artificial means, the heat of summer. …No room is lost in these little but precious freeholds; the vine extends its tendrils along the terrace walls … in the corners formed by their meeting, a little sheltered nook is found, where fig trees are planted, which ripen delicious fruit under their protection.

Figs grapes pomegranates and melons

The owner takes advantage of every vacant space to raise melons and vegetables. Olives shelter it from the rains; so that, within the compass of a very small garden, he obtains olives, figs, grapes, pomegranates, and melons. Such is the return which nature yields under this admirable system of management, that half the crop of seven acres is sufficient in general for the maintenance of a family of five persons, and the whole produce supports them all in rustic affluence. Italy, in this delightful region, still realizes the glowing description of gm classic historian three hundred years ago”.

The author I have quoted goes on next to observe that this diligent cultivation of the rock accounts for what at first sight is inexplicable, the vast population, which is found, not merely in the valleys, but over the greater part of the ridges of the Appennines, and the endless succession of villages and hamlets which are perched on the edge or summit of rocks, often, to appearance, scarcely accessible to human approach. He adds that the labour never ends, for, if a place goes out of repair, the violence of the rain will soon destroy it. “ Stones and torrents wash down the soil; the terraces are broken through; the heavy rains bring down a shapeless mass of ruins; every thing returns rapidly to its former state’’. Thus it is that parts of Palestine at present exhibit such desolate features to the traveller, who wonders how it ever could have been the rich land described in Scripture; till he finds that it was this sort of cultivation which made it what it was, that this it was the Crusaders probably saw and im-ported into Europe, and this that the ruthless Turks in great measure laid waste.