Though forbidding in aspect and apparently hopelessly sterile, yet, considering the nature of the soil, the kind of crops it is best adapted to produce, and the crude husbandry here practiced, the flinty region of Southern Palestine is equal in productiveness to many of the best portions of Europe and America. All that can be reasonably demanded of a country is to yield in fair proportion, with ordinary appliances, the indigenous fruits of the climate. The mountain tract from Shiloh to Hebron is the proper region for the olive and the vine, and one acre of the stony surface of Olivet, planted with olive-trees and carefully tended, would yield more through the exchanges of commerce toward human subsistence than a larger tract of the richest land in New York planted to corn. While corn is simply an article of food, the olive berry subserves a variety of purposes. Besides being used by the natives for food, and, as such, in large quantities exported to other countries, it contains a delicious oil, which, in domestic life, is the substitute for butter and lard, and in manufacture is employed in making soap and candles, and for lubricating machinery.[22] While, as in the days of the Psalmist, the olive and the grape, together with wheat, barley, and corn, are the staples of life, yet there are here annually raised in great abundance cauliflowers, cabbages, radishes, lettuce, beans, peas, onions, garlic, carrots, beets, leeks, lentiles, celery, parsley, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, pumpkins, together with the egg-plant and sugar-cane. There are also cultivated, in all their deliciousness, figs, apricots, peaches, plums, oranges, lemons, citrons, limes, mandrakes, pomegranates, apples, pears, dates, bananas, quinces, cherries, watermelons, muskmelons, with almonds, pistachios, and walnuts. In many northern districts cotton and tobacco are extensively cultivated, while in all sections herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats are raised for food and raiment. Possessing a climate marked with the peculiarities of the three zones, and yielding annually such harvests of grains and fruits for the sustenance of more than a million and a half of people, the Promised Land, under an enlightened Christian government, might be restored to its original fertility and pristine beauty.