The reader’s expectation of such a variety of climate, combined with a naturally fertile soil, of a rich production both in quality and in quantity is perfectly justifiable. Barley, cotton, tobacco, grapes and wheat are almost unexcelled in quality; although these are cultivated with very rude instruments and in very primitive ways. Almost all the fruits and vegetables raised in gardens, in this country, are in the list of the products of Armenia. It is due to the natural fertility of the country, when we remember the fact that the land is not only very old, and, therefore, more or less, would necessarily decline in its productivity, but the method of cultivation itself is also very old, started, probably by Adam, Noah and their immediate descendants, compelled by the necessities of life. In spite of ancient traditions, which locate the Garden of Eden in Armenia, no explorer as yet has been able to discover it. Some signs and symptoms, however, seem still to linger in that unhappy land, even the curse of the flaming sword included.[11] The flowers of Armenia are some of these signs, though they grow wild and uncultivated, yet they are of rare beauty, fragrance and hue, and hardly are they known to the Europeans and Americans. They should surely give a paradisical aspect to the place and furnish the conditions of Eden. The writer well remembers, while the snow had hardly melted away from the ground, going out into the fields with a missionary of his native city, who was eagerly digging up some of these flowers to send to his friends in England. “Some slight remains of Paradise are left even to our days, in the form of most lovely flowers, which I gathered on the very hill from whence the three rivers take their departure to their distant seas. Though one of them has a Latin scientific name, no plant of it has ever been in Europe, and by no manner of contrivance could we succeed in carrying one away. This most beautiful production was called in Latin Ravanea, or Philipea Coscinea, a parasite on absinthe or wormwood. This is the most beautiful flower conceivable, it is in the form of a lily, about nine to twelve inches long, including the stalk, the flower, the stalk and all the parts of it, resembles crimson velvet; it has no leaves, it is found on the side of the mountains near Erzerum, often in company with Morans Orientalis, a remarkable kind of thistle, with flowers all up the stalk, looking and smelling like the honeysuckle. An iris, of a most beautiful flaming yellow, is found among the rocks and it, as well as all the more beautiful flowers, blooms in the spring soon after the melting of the snow.”[12]