Palestine]
Sugar-cane can be grown on the coast and in the Jordan valley, but needs profuse irrigation, and is only cultivated in small quantities for chewing.
Other minor crops are carraway seed, fennel, and aniseed, the first of which is grown about Tripoli, the other two in the neighbourhood of Damascus. Aniseed, of which about 500 tons are raised, is used locally for flavouring arrack, and there is some export, as of carraway seed and fennel, to Egypt.
Fruit trees. Four of these, the olive, vine, mulberry, and orange, are of special importance.
Olive trees may be seen all over the country, but the largest groves are in the Lebanon, and about Beirut, Tripoli, Akka, Nablus, Safed, Ludd, Antioch, Edlib, Killis,[1] Aintab. The tree, which is comparatively hardy, growing on the poorest soil and requiring little attention, comes into bearing between its eighth and twelfth years, but usually yields a good crop (10-20 okes[2]) only in alternate years. It attains a great age. Olives are gathered green in September for eating, but hang till about the end of October when intended for oil-making. The total number of trees in the country before the war may be estimated, from official and semi-official statistics, at upwards of 10 million, producing 125,000,000 okes (about 158,000 tons) to the value of about 30.000,000 frs. During the last three years, however, the number has been much reduced, many trees having been cut down for fuel for the railways, &c.; as many as a third are stated to have been sacrificed in this way.
Vines are also very widely cultivated. Official and semi-official figures of 1910 and 1913 give the grape-producing area as 887,227 donum (nearly 815-5 sq. km.), with an output of 250,268,150 okes, exclusive of the Lebanon, for which another 30,000 donum (over
