2.] According to the native tradition, wheat was indigenous in Chaldaea; and the first comers thus found themselves provided by the bountiful hand of Nature with the chief necessary of life.

The luxuriance of the plant was excessive.

Its leaves were as broad as the palm of a man's hand, and its tendency to grow leaves was so great that (as we have seen) the Babylonians used to mow it twice and then pasture their cattle on it for awhile, to keep down the blade and induce the plant to run to ear.

The ultimate return was enormous; on the most moderate computation it amounted to fifty-fold at the least, and often to a hundred-fold.

The modern oriental is content, even in the case of a rich soil, with a tenfold return.
The date-palm was at once one of the most valuable and one of the most ornamental products of the country.