Now every tree bore fruit--edible fruit, that is.

In the case of one tree, in which they took especial pride, it had originally no fruit at all--that is, none humanly edible--yet was so beautiful that they wished to keep it.

For nine hundred years they had experimented, and now showed us this particularly lovely graceful tree, with a profuse crop of nutritious seeds.
They had early decided that trees were the best food plants, requiring far less labor in tilling the soil, and bearing a larger amount of food for the same ground space; also doing much to preserve and enrich the soil.
Due regard had been paid to seasonable crops, and their fruit and nuts, grains and berries, kept on almost the year through.
On the higher part of the country, near the backing wall of mountains, they had a real winter with snow.

Toward the south-eastern point, where there was a large valley with a lake whose outlet was subterranean, the climate was like that of California, and citrus fruits, figs, and olives grew abundantly.
What impressed me particularly was their scheme of fertilization.

Here was this little shut-in piece of land where one would have thought an ordinary people would have been starved out long ago or reduced to an annual struggle for life.