The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1890-03-06
Farming in the Holy Land.

The farming in Palestine stands just
where it did twenty-five, yes, hum
dred, yes, forty hundred years ago! So
that when we are studying it we are
studying the methods of the time Of
Abraham. Most Of the country IS
covered with stones, like parts of New
England, so that it may be truly said
OF it that it has 1.-TWO or three of stone
to one of dirt" 4 man said to a friend
there, "Where do you get the stones to
make all these fences ~ "Why, on
the ground; don't you see them lying
all around here:" "Yes, but don't
miss any1'
The stones are being constantly
broken up by the elements and cultiva-
ton and the people throw the loose ones
: in the fence rows. So you will see the
fences thus widened by these stones
cast against them until they are six or
eight feet high and wide enough to
drive team on the top.
The plough they use is the same
plough that has been used there for the
past four thousand years. They are
not progressive people, although they
think themselves the ''salt Of the
earth" aud that We are barbarians.
They call us '.kelb nasranny," which
means in their language, the Arabic,
christian dog" This illustrates their
enterprise.
When De Lesseps was building the
Suez Canal he tried to get them to use
the wheelbarrow to haul away the dirt,
which they had been carrying away in
their hats. TO save his life he couldn't
make them wheel the barrows. They
would shovel them full of earth and
then LIT them up and carry them back
every time.
Their ploughs make no furrow at all,
bat only scratch the ground little,
throwing little both ways like our old
fashioned shovel ploughs, although
not by any means so good as they
were. When they get it scratched
over they SOW the seeds broadcast
as we used to before the days OF
the drill. To cover it they walk
their sheep, goats, cameis and
other animals over the sowed ground,
and it grows up and heads out as it does
here, withoutany further attention, un-
til, it is headed, when it is big genough to
steal and has to be watched day and
night TO keep the neighbors from TAX
ing it of by stealth. And the people
and the animals cut it down, cutting
across the field both ways. The fences,
wide and tall enough at places, have
great gaps in them, through which
ANYBODY can ride or walk. Onr party
Of sixteen persons on horseback gal
loped right over wheat field several
miles long when it was headed out and
''in the milk and nobody seemed to
care, and our guide said to us that ''lt
was the custom of the country"
They raise quantities of grapes there.
You'll see field covered over with
what looks like walking sticks, in rows
some fifteen feet apart both ways and
about four feet long. Look close and
you will see that one end of this stick
is fast in the ground. These .are the
grapevines. When they begin to bud
and blossom they take forked stick
some three feet. long and prop up the
loose end with it, and the grapes before
they are ripe, and two-legged foxes in
abundance forage on them whenever
they get chance. a circular tower
twenty-five high is built in the centre
of the vineyards, hollow in the middle,
and a spiral staircase built inside, and
man or boy is kept on top of 1t day
and night from the time the grapes are
big enough to steal until they are all
gathered in. They make them into
wine which everybody drinks.there ln-
stead oc water. One man said he had
prejudice against water ever since he
had heard of so many people being
drowned by it in the flood.
All the implements which are used
for tilling the. soil are carried out 10
the field in the morning and brought
back at night and put inside the walls
Of their towns, and all the people go in
too, to keep from being robbed Of all
they have, even the clothes off their
backs. The women do the hardest
work all over the country. met a
man riding a donkey into Jerusalem,
smoking a long pipe and his wife
trndging along behind him with a
baby strapped on her back and carry
ing plough aud harrow, with which
they had been tending their crop. The
men always have theslightest work to
d.. I saw. a man holding the plough
handle who had cow and his wife
hitched upand pulling the plough for
him. In this way, and sometimes
with little oxen or a camel, they will
manage to scratch over quarter of an
acre a day. which is counted days
work. Wheat is harvested there in
May and barley month earlier. They
cut it with sickle, and if not they pull
it up by the roots, and then sheaf and
shock it much as we do until it goes
through the sweating process. They
haul ii 10 the threshing floors on the
Queere>t looking carts you ever saw.
They have two solid wooden wheels,
with four iron rings fixed in staples
on the outside of each wheel, which
rattle against the wheels as they roll
and make Z tremendous racket. In
This ,,.ay the iOSS can tell Wien the