Unlike the modern Persia, however, the territory consisted almost entirely of productive regions. The excellent quality of the soil in Parthia Proper, Hyrcania, and Margiana, has been already noticed. Bactria, the next province to Margiana towards the east, was less uniformly fertile; but still it contained a considerable proportion of good land along the course of the Oxus and its tributaries, which was cultivated in vineyards and cornfields, or else pastured large herds of cattle. The Mardian mountain territory was well wooded; and the plain between the mountains and the Caspian was rich in the extreme. Media, where it adjoined on the desert, was comparatively sterile; but still even here an elaborate system of artificial irrigation brought a belt of land under culture. Further west, in the Zagros chain, Media comprised some excellent pasture lands, together with numerous valleys as productive as any in Asia. Elymais was, in part, of the same character with the mountainous portion of Media, while beyond the mountain it sank down into a rich alluvium, not much inferior to the Babylonian. Babylonia itself was confessedly the most fertile country in Asia. It produced wheat, barley, millet, sesame, vetches, dates, and fruits of all kinds. The return of the wheat crop was from fifty to a hundred-and-fifty-fold; while that of the barley crop was three hundred-fold. The dates were of unusual size and superior flavor; and the palm, which abounded throughout the region, furnished an inexhaustible supply both of fruit and timber.