Many of the colonists of the Holy Land have set out new orchards, and the Americans who live at Haifa have trees bearing fruit every year. I am told that the crop is very profitable, and that under reduced taxation many more trees will be planted. The fruit is raised for the oil. A ton of olives yields about seventy gallons of oil. Asia Minor already leads the world in its production of olive oil, producing about two or three hundred thousand more barrels per annum than either Spain or Italy. Another important crop of the region about Smyrna is the fig, which grows better here than in almost any other part of the globe. More than three hundred thousand camel-loads are raised in some years, and they are shipped all over the world. The trees begin to bear in their sixth year, and are at their best ten years after planting. The figs ripen about the first of August, and when fully matured fall to the ground. They are dried in the sun, then packed in bags for the market. A great many of these figs go to America, where you will find them in all the fruit and grocery stores. Our part of the crop is carefully packed, there being several American firms here which do nothing else. The figs are first sorted according to the thickness of the skin and size of the fruit. The poorest are thrown away or used for distilling purposes, and the best are put up for export in boxes and jars. The price here varies from two to eight cents a pound, the very finest of the figs bringing the latter figure. A great deal of the packing is done in the city of Smyrna to which the fruit is brought in from all parts of the country. Some of it comes on the railways, on cars especially built for the traffic, and some is carried on camels. As it is important that the fruit be not bruised, that carried in the cars is laid upon shelves built one above the other, so that there is no danger of the figs being crushed or bruised. CHAPTER XXXII ARMENIA, THE SUFFERING Armenia is the Job among peoples. Her frightful sufferings seem to have no end. A little Christian island in a vast sea of Mohammedanism, she has been swept by one great tidal wave of persecution after another. Before the eyes of the modern world, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, even, a whole people has been robbed, exiled, and murdered, while the great nations have looked on apparently helpless to bring to a permanent end the horrible atrocities committed by the “unspeakable Turk.” Millions of dollars have been spent in the past for the aid of Armenia, millions more will be required before she is freed from famine and persecution. Vast sums have been donated by Americans through their churches and missionary societies, the Red Cross, and other national and international organizations to help these people in their misery. But lasting relief cannot come until Armenia is enabled to set up a nation of her own once more, or is brought under the protection of a strong Christian power.