The olive crop seems to require but little attention from the peasants; the land is ploughed twice or thrice each year, but the trees are neither manured nor pruned, and hence they only bear the full crop every other year. In October the fruit is ripe, and the trees are beaten with long poles, or shaken--much to their injury, and the fallen fruit is gleaned. It is said that the plague of locusts has more than once proved a subsequent blessing, because the olive-trees were eaten down and thus pruned, and yielded a plentiful harvest in the following year. The oil is pressed in two kinds of mills; one called M’aserah, from its “squeezing;” the other Matrûf, with a cylinder of stone placed vertically in a cylindrical stone case, and revolving in it, iron bars being fitted like spokes into the cylinder. The olive grows slowly, and there is no doubt that many of the trees round Shechem and Gaza are of great age. At Gaza the natives say that not a single olive-tree has been planted since the Moslem conquest of the land; and indeed, traditionally, they refer the oldest of the trees in the great avenue to the time of Alexander the Great. The name Rûmi, or “Greek,” sometimes applied to the olives, appears to be connected with this tradition. It seems possible that the first statement, that olives have not been planted at Gaza since the Moslem conquest, may be true, for the tree rarely dies, but when the trunk decays, fresh stems spring from the roots, and a group of olives takes the place of a single tree. The old olives are surrounded by an army of suckers (the “olive branches” of Scripture--Ps. cxxviii. 3), and these, as the parent stem decays, grow strong and tall in its room, so that the grove perpetuates itself without any trouble on the part of the owners. The olive-tree is the glory of Palestine, and one of the chief sources of wealth to the peasantry; the cool and grateful shade endears it to the traveller, and many a time have our tents been protected in stormy weather by the broad boles. The shade of the fig-tree is considered unhealthy by the Syrians, as producing ophthalmia, but that of the olive is a favourite shelter. The pastoral employments of the Fellahin occupy a good part of their attention; the young men, as in Jacob’s time, are the shepherds and cowherds, and are often found far from home. In spring the rich pastures of the plains and of the Jordan Valley attract the flocks, which are driven down to temporary settlements known as ’Azbât. An arrangement is sometimes made with a Bedawîn tribe to protect the flocks, and in other parts there are lands in the desert recognised as belonging to the villagers. The sheepcotes along the edge of the Judean desert are generally caves (1 Sam. xxiv. 3), and in these the boys sleep with their charges at night, especially during the lambing season, which occurs early in spring.