From the very first both directed their attention to agriculture. The fertile valleys and the luxuriant fields, and the vine-clad hills, and the fruitful orchards, and the flowry meads and the sweet-scented pasture lands of Palestine bear eloquent testimony to Jewish skill in agriculture. The advice which the prophet Jeremiah had sent to the Jewish captives of Babylon: "Build ye houses, and dwell in them, and plant gardens and eat the fruits of them, ... and increase in your captivity and not diminish. Seek the welfare of the city whither you are carried as captives, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the welfare thereof shall ye prosper and have peace."[34] This excellent advice the Jews applied to themselves, and faithfully followed, wherever they lived in exile, and wherever they were suffered to dwell in peace and promote the country's welfare. The Arab-Moors were no less devoted to this noble pursuit. When their warfare was over they beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives. Their motto was: "He who planteth and soweth, and maketh the earth bring forth fruit for man and beast, hath done alms that shall be reckoned to him in heaven." These two races devoted themselves to the cultivation of Spain with their hereditary love for the occupation, and with the skillful application of the experience, which they had gathered in other lands where they had dwelled or where they had established their power. By them agriculture in Spain was carried to a height, which until the invention of machinery was not surpassed in Europe. As early as the tenth century the revenue of agriculture of Moorish Spain alone amounted to nearly $6,000,000, more than the entire revenue of all the rest of Europe at that time. The ruins of their noble works for the irrigation of the soil, their great treaties on irrigation and crops, and improved breeds of cattle, on grafting and gardening, and their code of laws regulating agriculture, which still exist, still attest their skill and industry and put to shame the ignorance and indolence of their Spanish successors. Many plants were introduced in Europe, and successfully cultivated by them, which, after the expulsion of the Jews and Moors, and the discovery of America, Spain lost and neglected, such as rice and sugar cane (_soukhar_), as they called it, saffron and mulberry trees, ginger, myrrh, bananas and dates. The Spanish names of many plants show their origin, and some have traveled even to us, such as the apricot, from "_albaric aque_," the artichoke from "_alca chofa_" cotton from "_al godon_."[35] They gave Xeres and Malaga their celebrated wine, which has maintained its reputation to this day. [34] Jeremiah xxix: 5-8 [35] "Christians and Moors of Spain," by C. M. Yonge, chapter x.