The ordinary crops are barley and wheat. There are two varieties of bearded wheat, called “hard” and “soft,” the former being considered the best. The yield on the average is six-fold. Oats and rye are unknown, but in addition to the corn, millet, sesame, Indian corn, melons, tobacco, and cotton, are the summer crops; while lentils, beans, and chick-peas, with other vegetables, are grown in winter. Indigo grows wild, and is occasionally cultivated in the Jordan Valley. The land is never allowed to lie fallow, unless through want of labour to cultivate. A rotation of crops is observed, but manure is rarely used. To the list of productions must be added the beautiful and extensive groves of olives, especially noticeable in the low hills, with the vineyards, on the high ridges as at Hebron, where the grape is swelled by the autumn mists, and the fig-gardens, which flourish especially in the Christian district of Jufna and Bîr ez Zeit. Pomegranates, apricots, walnuts, plums, apples, mulberries, pears, quinces, oranges, lemons, and bananas, may be noticed among the fruit-trees which are found in the gardens near springs. The irrigation of the vegetable gardens by means of small ditches trodden by the foot, is another instance of the survival of a Jewish method of cultivation (Deut. xi. 10). The first agricultural operation is that of ploughing, which is commenced in autumn at the time of the first rains, and again continued in spring for the later crops. The first period is about the end of November, the second in March and April. According to Mr. Bergheim, the first day of the autumn ploughing varies from the 17th of November to the 14th of December. The plough is of the most primitive kind, very small, with a coulter like an arrow-head, and a single handle like that of a spade, with a cross piece, which is held by one hand, while in the other the ploughman has a stick with a nail at the end, used as a goad. To this pointed spade (as the plough may be called) is attached a long pole, which connects it with the heavy yoke of the cattle. The furrow is extremely shallow, and the instrument, indeed, only scratches the upper soil, leaving virgin earth untouched below. There are generally two ploughs which follow one another, the first perhaps harnessed to a single camel, the second to two small oxen, or to an ox with an ass (Deut. xxii. 10). The sower follows the plough, and scatters his seed, not only into the good soil of the furrows, but partly among the thistles and artichokes which grow rank in the unturned soil, partly on the beaten path beside the field, partly among the rocks and stones which crop up in patches amid the arable ground (Matt. xiii 3--8).