CHAPTER 2 - Aron's 'Agricultural and Botanical Explorations in Palestine’

Young Aron in the field in his Twenties

‘In 1904, Aron is already a serious scholar and independent researcher with an admirable knowledge of geology, history, botany, geography, mythology, and like his sisters, of many languages. The family all understand English, though it is not their favoured tongue. To this they can add half the languages of Europe - Russian, Polish, French, Rumanian, some Spanish and Italian, Hebrew, it goes without saying, Arabic, Turkish and naturally, Yiddish - that peculiar concoction of Judeo-German and Hebrew. A long list, to which Aron can add Latin, Armenian, Kurdish, a smattering of Greek and a number of songs in Ladino - that ancient tongue of the dispersed Jews of Spain and finally, some swear words in Sanskrit - not strictly a European language, but effective nevertheless.

He writes: ‘In June, 1904, as I was in upper Galilee preparing a geognostic map of the region, I went as far as the foot of Mount Hermon looking for Triticum dicoccum dicoccoides but failed to discover it. I was not very persistent in my search because I had very little hope of success. I knew that both the late G. Post, the author of ‘Flora of Syria, Palestine, and Sinai,’ and Joseph Bornmuller, author of a similar study had spent a great deal of time botanising in the neighbourhood of Rasheyya, the locality on Mount Hermon from which another famous botanist, Kotschy's specimen was supposed to have come. As these skillful botanists did not report any Triticum, I concluded that Kotschy's specimen must in reality have come from some other place - that an error had been made in attributing it to Rasheyya. But when I visited Berlin in the summer of 1905 Messrs. Ascherson and Schweinfurth brought up the question again, and I decided to resume the investigation at the earliest opportunity...’

Aron Travels Across the Land

Aron & Arab Town with Barley Growing in the Hills

Aron Travels near Tiberius

In his twenties and thirties Aron travels across the Land of Israel on botanical quests in search of specimens of plants unique to the Holy Land and creates a number of maps, geological and physical, recording those travels in search of the world’s oldest wild wheat. At all times he writes a work log of his finds in which he details his daily work, including his scientific observations. On 9 March, 1908 , during his trip around the Dead Sea he wrote the following:

‘At 6:00 the temperature was 60 degrees, the barometer read 675.0 at 7. I did not see any mistletoe on the olive trees. The major field crops here are wheat, barley, and a little bit of watermelon. Most of the locals are engaged in growing lime. The prickly burnet - Poterium Spinosum - dominates the slopes of the hills here’.

Aron's Turkish Travel Document

His attention to detail is remarkable and his great trek will subsequently be recorded in his book, ‘Agricultural and Botanical explorations in Palestine’. 

‘Agricultural and Botanical Explorations in Palestine’

This sepia-coloured diary and botanical text on his famous expedition, is published in English in 1910, by the Government printing office in Washington, in conjunction with The United States Department of Agriculture.  The frontispiece proudly announces the writer as ‘Aron Aronson. Director of the Jewish Agricultural Experiment Station at Haifa, Palestine’. 

The Frontispiece  of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1910

You can see that the author of this piece, omniscient or just expedient - prefers shorter more anglicised, names, the spelling easier on the English speaking ear and the American tongue and I, the sometimes narrator, have copied the author’s example -  Aaron is Aron, Aaronsohn is Aronson, Sarah is Sara, etc. And for the sake of privacy, certain well-known folks have names that are not their own. Aron's book will have many incarnations - the original sepia version, printed in America will be republished posthumously on a number of occasions for readers of future generations. A very rare, later edition is printed by his remaining family in 1931. It contains the same detailed notes on the wild wheat distribution and newer botanical notes on the landscapes he surveyed. The text includes numerous scientific name, an index, thirteen botanical designs and thirty eight photo-plates documenting the expedition. A folding map at the rear is titled ‘Aronson’s travels in Jordan and the distribution of wild wheat in the land of Israel’. It is written in Hebrew and scientific Latin for plant names. A previous edition, was published in French as ‘Florula transjordania: révision critique des plantes récoltées et partiellement determinées’, also by his family.

It will suffice to include just a few of Aron’s excerpts and images, in the style of the time, utilising a now defunct, antique font, which will serve to introduce us to that eager traveller in the baggy trousers, many-pocketed, canvas jacket, strong boots and felt hat - definitely not pith helmet - of an early twentieth century explorer, in his efforts to decode the unknown history of the plants of our region.

**** 

Aron at the Jordan River

Aron on Mount Scopus

‘In the territory with which we are dealing we have, as has been shown, a large number of wild species and varieties. If we consider the varied natural conditions of Palestine and the peculiar methods of cultivation which have been brought about by political conditions - the vicissitudes of war, the continual migration of tribes, and colonisation - all acting through such long periods of time, we can readily understand why so many varieties of cultivated plants have been developed and why the country is such an interesting one to study and is so full of promise...’ 

He writes of the various ‘economic plants’ which he deems worth of introduction into the United States and in his descriptions gives us a window into the long, lonely years of his many travels. I include only a few of these, and some of his comments on the indigenous inhabitants of the region - not all flattering - and the usefulness of these plants for the arid conditions shared with North America:

Zizyphus Spina-Christi - ‘Christ-Thorn’ or Palestine Thorn

‘Zizyphus spina-christi - ‘Christ-thorn’ - This tree averages 16 feet or more in height, with a diameter of 16 to 24 inches. Its fruit, about the size of a hazelnut, is not so well liked as that of the species mentioned later. It is a tree which is found along the coast and in the valley of the Jordan and especially farther south in the valley of the Arabah, it is the most common tree on alkaline soils. The Arabs water their land very abundantly and do not provide any drainage, and as a consequence great quantities of alkaline salts are brought to the surface. At the end of two or three years the soil is so excessively salty that the land is abandoned for a number of years until the rains have washed the salt down into the subsoil. Zizyphus spina-christi grows on these lands abandoned on account of their excessive alkalinity, so that when an explorer finds a field overgrown with this plant he can be sure that it has formerly been under cultivation. In very moist lands along the banks of streams, for example those of the Jordan near Jericho, the type plant loses its thorns  - thorny stipules or stipular spines. The resulting strain is called inermis - meaning weaponless or ‘spineless’. Zizyphus lotus. - This bush rarely grows to a height of 6 feet. It tends rather to give off suckers, thus spreading continually and forming clumps of large diameter. This characteristic makes the plant very valuable for the fixation of dunes. It seems to be more particularly adapted to inland dunes, although it has been grown successfully along the coast. The fruit of this species, although smaller than that of Z. spina-christi, is more palatable and, under the name of  ‘Dom,’ is eaten dry by the Arabs throughout the valley of the Jordan, and also by the Jews of Tiberias. The taste is a little like that of dried apples...’ 

Acacia Tree near Ein Gedi from Aron's Botanical Diary

His travels take him from the vicinity of Tiberias and farther south and east where he records another strain which grows on the black basalts, where in summer a burning temperature prevails - and onwards to the cooler Galilee, Mount Hermon, with its snows, the soon to be greened Jordan Valley and all the way to pink-hued Petra: 

‘Of Paliurus spina-christi which thrives on the plateaus of upper Galilee, where it is used for hedges around unirrigated olive plantations, and also at the foot of Mount Hermon, where hedges of it are planted around irrigated fields. Of Pistacia palaestina - a wild pistachio 13 to 26 feet high and 2 feet or more in diameter. They are found in all sorts of soil, particularly in crevices of calcareous rocks. P. palaestina grows in the valley of the Jordan and extends as far as Petra and the Arabah, generally in slightly moist sandstone soils...’  

Almonds, much beloved by all in our land, are described too:  

Almond Trees Palestine c 1911

‘Of Amygdalus communis. - The wild almond is very common in Palestine and Syria ; that is, a really wild almond, not one that has escaped from cultivation. These wild almonds are plentiful enough to furnish an article of commerce. The Bedouin Women of Gaulanitis - ‘Djolan’ - gather the bitter almonds and carry them to the market at Damascus.'

Our hero climbs Mount Hermon, our highest peak where he will later discover the object of his quest, the first wheat. Here he writes of another almond varietal:  

‘Amygdolus orientalis. - I believe that this species is also worthy of being recommended, although I must admit that I have had no personal experience with it. It is common on Mount Hermon, and I know it to be one of our hardiest species. It thrives in crevices of rocks looking toward the east, thus being exposed to the hot, dry winds of the desert. It extends to altitudes of 3,300 to 5,000 feet and is very resistant to the rigorous winters of these high regions. It is therefore one of the best species to test as a stock for poor soil in barren regions. It should prove valuable in Washington, Oregon, and Colorado...’

Of plums, wild and orchard cultivated, Aron records - and samples - them all:

Aron Samples Wild Plums & Sour Cherries

‘Of Prunus microcarpa and Prunus ursina. - All that has been said about Amygdalus orientedis applies also to P. microcarpa and P. ursina, which appear in the Same localities and under the Same conditions. The fruits of Prunus microcarpa are slightly bitter but very refreshing, and the writer has often enjoyed them when tired out from long walks in this region. The seed has a thin shell which is easily broken. Prunus ursina - ‘bear plum’ has a globular fruit, violet-red or yellow when ripe, an inch in diameter. It takes its name from the fact that bears, said to be formerly numerous on Mount Hermon, but now exceedingly scarce, are very fond of it. It is also eaten by the shepherds and their wives. Of Prunus cerasia. - This shrub is very interesting on account of its fruit, which is quite similar to the damson in taste and appearance. The seed, however, is longer and more pointed. The fruit is oval and one-half inch to 1 inch in length. This shrub is cultivated more for stock than for its fruit, which is astringent and not very agreeable. It is possibly the prototype of the cultivated damson. This seems the more probable from the fact that the word ‘damson’ is thought to have been derived from Damascus. Among other species the most important is Crataegus azarolus with its numerous varieties. This is a shrub of the calcareous hills and appears only on very dry lands. If undisturbed it grows as high as 13 to 16 feet, but its branches are generally hacked off for fuel by Arab woman or mutilated by heavy stones thrown by the boys to shake down the fruit which the wild goats like very much. Some varieties of azarolus have fruit as large as a large cherry, with a very agreeable acid taste... ' 

We should here be permitted to imagine Aron, with the very agreeable, red juice running down his chin as he nibbles, just like a wild goat from those trees. But he adds a proviso:  

‘Although they are sold on the markets of the Orient, they would not be marketable in Europe or America because of the large stones and bitter taste...’

Americans, then, as now, more used to the sweet things in life. In a more personal note, Aron records his own example of grafting and pruning:

‘For fifteen years or more the writer has used Crataegus azarolus as a stock for pears with excellent results. Top-grafted at 2 to 3 feet above the ground, it develops into very beautiful, productive, and long-lived dwarf trees, provided the grafting is done with very early varieties. he writer speaks only of pears, because he has experimented with them, but he sees no reason a priori why these stocks should not do as well for apples, which he has not as yet tried...’

In every example, our determined botanist lists, the types of soil, plant descriptions and precise measurements and the behaviour, customs and economy of the local peoples, their women and their animals:

‘Pyrus syriaca' - The Wild Pear

‘Pyrus syriaca. - This wild pear ought to be considered along with the species of Crataegus. It would be adapted to an even greater range of soil, for, though the Crataegus species appear only on very porous soils, some races of these wild pears grow in very humid localities, almost swampy, or at least submerged for two or months of the year. Pyrus syriaca is a shrub 13 to 20 feet high. The branches of young plants and the suckers at the base of the trunks of old trees are very spiny, but there are no thorns at the top. The fruit is a favourite with the peasants and shepherds. It grows as said, on damp soils at sea level; it is also found in the forests and underbrush on hills and plateaus. Sometimes, a single tree stands by itself without any protection from the winds and the burning sun...’

Such an image may permit us, with a little licence, to imagine Aron himself, as that tenacious, wild, windswept tree under that burning sun with which we are only too familiar. As well as wild trees, Aron includes orchard-grown fruits - apricots and almonds, in particular, all of which he considers suitable for introduction to the States and highly suitable for grafting and hybridisation. 

Aron with ‘Muschmusch Kelabi' Apricots

Of apricots - ‘muschmusch’ - for which I recall, he had a great fondness, he writes: 

‘Only one variety ‘Muschmusch kelabi,’ has bitter kernels; the kernels of all of the others are sweet and are eaten like almonds. The annual export of ‘kelabi’ kernels from Damascus alone averages 60.000 pounds. Some varieties have especially good shipping qualities. They are packed, without being wrapped, in boxes that have been used for the importation of Russian petroleum. They are carried upon mules, sometimes for two or three days, over precipitous, rocky paths, and yet. in spite of all this and of their being exposed to great variations of temperature, they reach the markets in excellent condition...’ 

The ‘Muschmusch kelabi’, he tells us, is used only for the manufacture of apricot paste. This we know well as the local people sell sheets of the dried delicacy at every wayside. A most delicious roadside food, much suited to long journeys and of course, no refrigeration: 

‘Spread in a thin layer and dried in the sun, it looks like a piece of leather. It is treated with a little oil so as to prevent its becoming brittle. It can then be rolled up and being very easy to  carry, it forms an important part of the rations of the Mohammedan soldier. On account of its value to him in his religious campaigns it is called ‘Kamr-ed-din’ - the crescent’... ' 

Of that sour-sweet, pinkish quince which I remember so well from my own mother’s preserves and jellies which stood always on a kitchen dresser along with her copper-ware cooking pots and other jars of good, home-pickled cucumbers and brinish olives:

‘The quince is cultivated in different regions and under various conditions of soil and climate. We have some varieties adapted to irrigated orchards only; others that yield fruit on the cool, but dry, plateaus of Samaria. Some varieties have fruit edible when ripe; others are always astringent. All yield a beautiful ruby-colored jelly of a very fine flavor...’

And of the glorious pomegranate, the crimson fruit which caused Persephone’s daughter to descend to the underworld for half a year, and whose seeds symbolise fertility in the ancient Near East and whose resplendent red fruit graces our tables at the New Year:

Aron with Pomegranates

‘Pomegranates are extensively cultivated in Syria and Palestine, although the crop is not one of great commercial importance. They grow in wild thickets, having escaped from cultivation, and are very drought resistant. Pomegranates are also cultivated in almost all orchards, both with and without irrigation. They comprise two groups, the acid fruited and the sweet fruited. The latter includes those fruits with large, hard seeds and the form called ‘Malissi,’ with its small and thin shelled kernels. There are a great number of types among the 'Malissi.’ The ‘Bint-el-Bascha’ or ‘daughter of the pascha’ grows at Gaza, in southern Palestine, at sea level. This name is given by the Arabs to different fruits or products of special excellence. These varieties are found on deep, Quaternary soil and they require irrigation. They have been famous from ancient times and are exported to Egypt and other lands. Er-Reineh, a Christian village in lower Galilee, between Nazareth and Tiberias, is also known as Um-er-Ruman - ‘Mother of the pomegranate’, because so many varieties of such excellent quality are produced there...’ 

Of the olive that true daughter of Palestine, he has much to tell:

Wild Olive & Arab Women

‘The wild olive certainly originated in the hills and mountains of Syria and Palestine, rather than in those of Algeria. At any rate, there are different varieties of wild or half-wild olives in our hills adapted to all kinds of soil and to widely different climatic conditions. Though they would not be ranked botanically as varieties, there are three distinct races among our wild olives which are used either for direct planting or in our nurseries. The first is a form with thin, brittle, blackish bark. This form is not much liked; it is difficult to propagate, grows slowly, is hard to graft, and the fruit produced by these grafts is said to be not very rich in oil. Second, there is a form with waxy green bark. This is easily propagated, grafts readily, is very much liked, and when used as a stock gives a very large yield of oil, but it is of rather slow growth and it fruits late. The third form has a thick, white or gray bark, which separates readily. It is particularly well adapted for grafting, is easily propagated, grows rapidly, and fruits early. It is said that the trees of this race do not live as long as those of the preceding one...’

He adds somewhat disparagingly of the local contribution, and with some professional arrogance - to which I can personally attest:

‘All of this information is not guaranteed, as some of it was obtained from the Arabs, but that part which relates to propagation, growth, and grafting is from personal observation. To be sure, the oil of southern Palestine is also rancid and mediocre in quality when prepared in the Arab fashion, but excellent when well prepared...’

Olives grow, we are assured by our hero’s first hand observation, as well as by local reports under the name ‘Nabali’. Many ancient specimens flourish near Haifa, the villages of Et-Tireh, Ijzim, and Aim Ghazal - ‘Mother of gazelles’, in the foothills of Mount Carmel and the upper Galilee. There is no Palestinian, Jew or Arab who does not love olives!

‘A number of other varieties are found in the region of Damascus. Others grow under irrigation at Abedieh and Jericho, in the valley of the Jordan, at 650 to 850 feet below sea level. They are commonly cultivated at Hermon and at Lebanon, 4,000 to 5,000 feet in altitude, where the winters are long and relatively severe. I have no reason to doubt that there are forms among these which will grow well in those parts of California...’ 

All these places our intrepid explorer has visited on foot, horseback and by cart or carriage. And all these he hastens to add to his list of Oriental plants suited to the great West, for he never forgets his goal; to persuade the Americans to support his endeavours by reciprocal generosity.

Fruit of the Fig Tree from Aron's Botanical Diary

Figs too with their sensuous, purple curves and abundant seeds have a special place in Aron’s heart, and in my own. Bottled on Malka’s kitchen dresser, piled on my dear mother, Fanny Feinberg’s fruit dishes, with that royal Tyrian bloom still evident and a couple of sharp, stinging wasps always hovering:

‘Of figs: Though the fig is not cultivated to so great an extent in Palestine as in Smyrna, it is, nevertheless, a very important crop, particularly in upper Galilee, where the population is very dense and labour is cheap. 

Fig Tree at Safad

There are a great number of varieties there - some with black fruit, others with green, and still others with pink. Some of these figs can be used only while fresh. These are not very extensively cultivated, there being practically no shipping facilities. Other varieties are dried and pressed and, to some extent, shipped abroad. They are, however, chiefly consumed by the Bedouins, whose liking for ‘kutteins' - dried figs - is proverbial. These people are not at all critical, so that no effort has been made to improve the methods of preparing this product or to study the best varieties for cultivation. It is our wild figs, however, rather than our cultivated varieties, that will probably prove of the greatest value in the United States. Ficus carica. - This species and its numerous varieties grow wild abundantly in the crevices of rocks. The openings of the numerous mountain caves are generally shaded by these wild trees. Ficus sycomorus. - a native of India which grows all along the Palestine coast as far north as Beirut. It is very drought resistant, and in southern Palestine grows to a considerable size. Its wood is highly valued on account of its great density and the size of the trunks. It is used particularly to make sledges for threshing. But it is the use of the fruit as forage - a food supply for sheep and hogs - which should make it of value for certain parts of the United States. Although it is of inferior quality, it is greedily eaten by the Bedouins. The tree yields very abundantly, the fruit covering all of the old branches and even the trunk...’

Aron with Fig Tree from his Botanical Diary

One of the plates Aron includes in his book, shows a large fig tree of the above variety near Jaffa, a place he and I visited together many times. The tree, which I recall well as providing a modicum of shade in an otherwise barren landscape, aged and bent, old and craggy as the hills, demonstrating its resistance to drought and its resignation to the fierce, stinging power of the ‘Hamsin’. The roots laid bare by the wind and the branches on the windward side stunted by constant and strong wind. Some may see in it, a symbol of the Arab race; resigned to fate but resilient in the face of extreme and harsh conditions... 

Of dates, those honeyed, fleshy fruits, on their huge, spreading palms, so symbolic of my own death - and some would say, resurrection - Aron writes with his usual mix of biblical and other historical references and his encyclopaedic knowledge of every village and region in the land:

Date Plantation Jericho

‘At the present time date cultivation in Palestine is not of any great economic importance. But this has not always been the case. In biblical times Jericho, in the valley of the Jordan, was called the ‘City of Dates.’ At the beginning of the Christian era, when Tiberias and its environs were the Riviera of that time and when the princes and princesses of the Orient went there to spend the winters, the city of Magdala was celebrated, not only for its establishments for cleaning and dyeing the valuable costumes of its noble visitors, but still more for the delicious early dates which it produced. To-day the cultivation of the date in the valley of the Jordan is of no importance whatever. Only the village of Abadieh still has a few date trees of a local variety, the fruit of which is of good quality. But the people who are establishing new plantations, instead of propagating this local variety, prefer to send to Egypt or Baghdad and bring from a distance and at great expense plants which are really of less value than the local product. There are two places, however, where the old date plantations have not entirely died out. The first is east of the Dead Sea in the Valley of Zerka, the ancient Calirrhoe, once celebrated for its hot baths, frequented by King Herod. Here thousands of date trees grow wild in crevices of arid sandstone many feet below sea level, in narrow gorges intensely hot and dry. where the soil is extremely alkaline. The second place is farther north, in the valley of the ancient Hiero Naaman, in a marsh formed by several hot springs. Here these wild dates form a veritable jungle, probably one of the few places of its kind in the world...’

Jewish Grape Pickers c 1911

Of the grape and its delightful, fermented nectar, so beloved of the poets, Aron says but little. He was, in the main, a stranger to the Bacchanalian carousing that turns all young men into gods, the vino veritas, that makes us all into seers and truth tellers where the secrets of our heart are revealed in their raw, golden entirety. Aron was for many years, a teetotaler, who valued sobriety in all things.

Later, of course, his taste turned to stronger stuff - but that was later...

I, by contrast adored the stuff, not God forbid as a means to inebriation, but as a means of seeing the world in all its glory! 

Kahlil Gibran on Drinking Wine

As Kahlil Gibran, close neighbour from Lebanon agrees - though we would have disagreed on much else, he favouring Arab nationalism while I, of course, took the side of  Zionism -  would write some five years after my transmutation into eternity: ‘And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard for the winepress, say in you heart, ‘I too am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress, And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels.’ Perhaps, my rather poor poetry is indeed all I have left behind?

Omar Kayaam Rubaiyat - ‘A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread - and Thou’

How can I not end these musings without mentioning that 11th-century Persian poet Omar Kayaam?  He, who pens in his Rubaiyat:

‘A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!’

Such sentiments so familiar and precious to me when I think of my beloved lying together with me on Tantura Beach with the simple plein air repast identical to that above...

But back to my very sober and dearest friend who has only one thing on his mind: impressing the  American politicians, agronomists and scientists and his many wealthy Jewish patrons who urged by influential Reform Rabbi Judah Magnes, were persuaded to support his crazy idea of starting an American funded research station in Palestine!

‘Though the religion of the Mohammedans forbids the use of wine, they cultivate grapes extensively and have developed a great number of varieties. Before the German and Jewish colonisation began in Palestine, grapes were cultivated chiefly for table use and for raisins. We now grown grapes for both sacramental and table wine and have many successes in this area. A study of the vineyards of Palestine would no doubt reveal many varieties that would be valuable to the United States...’

The Jaffa Orange at Hadera from Aron's Botanical Diary

Of the Jaffa orange, Aron has more to say, illustrating his chapter with nothing less than a photograph from Hadera, of seedling orange trees grown exactly where the beloved Feinberg House of my youth is situated. He begins, as so often, with history and ends with literature - French literature, as it so happens, so intrinsic to my own thought processes and linguistic catalyst for my inspiration as fledgling verse writer which was all I had time to be..

Hasselquist, a pupil of Linnaeus, who was the first naturalist to study Palestine in the middle of the eighteenth century, speaks of the beautiful gardens of figs and pomegranates at Jaffa, but has not a word to say about oranges.

‘This silence is significant. But at the time of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, at the close of the eighteenth century, the orange was mentioned among the fruit trees. Chateaubriand, who traveled in the beginning of the nineteenth century, also speaks of this fruit. Lamartine, visiting Palestine in October 1832, praises the beauty and quality of the Jaffa orange, but speaks of having seen the flowers and the golden fruits at the time of his visit. Now, at this season of the year - autumn in the Holy Land - it was too late for the trees to have been in bloom and not late enough for the fruits to be ripe. This and other errors of observation cause me to doubt the value of the poet's description from the point of view of the naturalist and agriculturist, although its value as literature is unquestioned. At any rate, in the second half of the nineteenth century the Jaffa orange or Schamouti, was known in the markets for its superior quality. It was exported by sailing vessels all along the Syrian and Egyptian coasts. Its thick skin made it a good shipper, and it was carried as far as Constantinople and Greece. Today Liverpool alone takes about 500,000 to 600,000 cases of the 700,000 or 800,000 that are annually exported. Its shipping qualities are excellent. It is packed into wooden crates, thrown unceremoniously into the steamers, and they are often carried for three weeks or more without refrigeration and subjected to the greatest extremes of temperature; and yet the oranges reach the English markets in good condition and command good prices...’

Chick Pea Branch from Aron's Botanical Diary

Of the carob, the chick-pea and the sesame, forage plants growing uncultivated in the wild - but also cultivated and suitable for feeding livestock in summer, I will start with the carob.  First, the carob tree is evergreen; its leaves do not wither or fall in the winter months. Second, it is a fruit-bearing tree. Both these characteristics are symbolic of life and continuity. For these reasons, carobs have a special place in my heart, those dark pods filled with seeds which we eat on Lag Ba Omer when we celebrate the teachings of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, author of the mystical Zohar. Forced into hiding to escape the Roman oppressors of his time, Rabbi Shimon and his son Rabbi Eliazar hid in a cave for thirteen years, where they survived on carobs from a tree which miraculously sprouted at the entrance to their cave. The festival also commemorates another, no less significant event. In the weeks between Passover and Shavuot, a plague raged amongst the disciples of another great sage Rabbi Akiva and on the date of Lag Ba Omer the plague miraculously came to an end. We also eat the carob - which is slightly chocolatey, dried and pulped, on the Jewish holiday of Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees. 

And we love our trees and seek to plant a million more!

The word ‘carob’ indeed comes from the Arabic for ‘kharrūb’ or ‘locust bean pod, the Arabic qīrāṭ from the Greek name for the carob seed which meant ‘small horn’. The carob seed, being almost standard in size and weight became the ‘carat,’ and came to refer to the weight of diamonds and other precious stones, as well as a measurement of the purity for gold. So precious was our carob in both religion and gemology. But it should be remembered that carobs bear fruit only under stress, where no other fruit will grow. In our region, it is mainly used as animal feed, and thus came to symbolise the food of the poor or the desperate and our survival under any conditions.  

As our constant gardener writes: 

‘The Leguminosae must be considered first. In this family we find one of the most valuable forage plants in existence for semiarid regions, the importance of which for this purpose has not been sufficiently appreciated. This is the carob tree, sweet-pod. or St. John's bread ‘Ceratoma siliqua’ which according to the Bible of Saint Mark, sustained St. John the Baptist in the wilderness. An acre of carob trees upon arid soil yields a much greater quantity of food matter than an equal area planted with the best alfalfa. There are few crops so well adapted as the carob to agricultural conditions in certain parts of the United States. It should succeed in California and in parts of Arizona and Texas...’

Of the chick-pea and the sesame, so important to our Middle Eastern diet, Aron writes of their diversity and usefulness to his American project: 

‘The chick-pea is one of the most valuable legumes grown in Palestine. In good years it yields 122 bushels to the acre.  It sells for as much as much as wheat, and often for more. Those of southern Palestine are different from those of central Palestine, and the plateaus of upper Galilee and farther north produce still different types. In the southern part of the country the chick-pea does well with a rainfall of 16 inches or even less. I know from personal experience that these varieties do not grow well under irrigation. As there are in Palestine no bean harvesters like those used in the United States, chick-peas are gathered by hand, the plants being pulled up by the women. The stems of this plant growing in southern Palestine are very corrosive and attack the hands of the workers because they are covered with crystals of oxalates and other hygroscopic salts which probably absorb to some extent the moisture in the air ; so, no matter how dry the night may be, a field of chick-peas always glistens with drops of water in the morning. Of the sesame: The sesames of Palestine are of most excellent quality. In the markets of Marseille and of Germany they pay a special price for the Haifa sesame. This is preferred to the sesame of Jaffa or the Ghor, the Arab name for the valley of the Jordan. The soil must be well prepared for sesame. For the best results it should be pulverised until as fine as ashes...’

Aron & Chick-Pea Plant with Early Morning Dew

We can imagine Aron, very early in the day, already in the fields, a handful of those peas in his palm watching the wonder of those glistening drops studding the plants like little diamonds. The chick-pea and certainly the sesame both invaluable to us, creating our beloved, traditional humus and tahina. Both, I should hasten to add, learned from the tribes who were here before us and quickly adopted by our Jewish housewives to create that basic ‘humus va tahina’, highly nutritional and protein-based and one of the staples of any field lunch or Shabbat table. Those tiny sesame seeds being crushed to reveal its delicate and surprisingly flavourful oil in that creamy paste. 

‘Open sesame!’ As the stories of One Thousand and One Nights tell us, opens the mouth of a cave in which forty thieves have hidden a great treasure.

On a more political note, he talks of the pacification of the region - the notion brings him some succour - but if he thinks the Levant, as the French like to call it, will ever enjoy anything like permanent peace, he will of course be proved horribly wrong. And when all is said and done, Aron himself was never a pacifist, preferring a just war to false promises of peace:

Aron's Maps Physical & Geological

‘From the physical and geological nature of Palestine, as has been explained, there necessarily resulted a diversity of climates within a very small area, and this diversity of both soil and climate has given rise to a very rich and varied flora and fauna. In the cultivated plants a multiplicity of forms has also been favored by the political as well as by the natural conditions. From a human point of view we have every reason to rejoice at the pacification of the Orient, because of the greater safety to life and property and the better intercourse it has brought about; but from the standpoint of the cultivation of plants we are losing ground, for it is a natural tendency to reject all of the old habits and in so doing to annihilate many of these local varieties which have been in process of development for so many centuries...’

The Watermelon Market Jaffa from Aron's Botanical Diary

Of the watermelon, Aron gives us a whole anthropology of the melons of our region and he includes a photograph of the watermelon market at Jaffa with its rough stalls and much haggling going on as the melons are weighed, by holding, in first, the merchant’s and then the buyer’s hands and checked for quality by both. A seasoned watermelon seller can tell the ripeness and sweetness of the melon by merely tapping its thick, striated rind with a forefinger and the recipient of this bounty is never disappointed:

‘Of the different species of watermelon cultivated in Palestine I shall mention only two. The ‘Abu-taba’ - ‘father of the ring’, so called because of the large circular scar which it has in the place of the pistil, is cultivated chiefly along the coast in the neighborhood of the Jewish colony Hadera. It is exported to the value of $200,000 annually chiefly from Caesarea and Minet Abu-Zabura. The latter is a temporary harbor maintained only during the shipping season of these melons. This Abu-taba, which grows on the poorest soil, is very early, and because of its thick rind it is uninjured by journeys of two to three weeks. It is therefore shipped to Egypt, Smyrna, and Constantinople. Another rather curious sort is that cultivated in the neighborhood of Tiberias. It is not so early as the one just mentioned and does not have such good shipping qualities, but it is much liked on account of the sweetness of its fruit. It is very small, being only about the size of a grapefruit. There is a kind of muskmelon, cultivated chiefly by the Bosnians in Caesarea, that is kept until late in the winter. It is, I believe, derived from the sort cultivated in Anatolia, a variety propagated in California under the name ‘Casaba...’

Of the Original Wheat, the true subject of Aron’s researches, naturally he has a great deal to say and he includes many pictures and anecdotes, of which I shall describe but a few:

The Arab Plough

‘Up-to-date’ Jewish farmer in the Jordan Valley from Aron's Botanical Diary

We may wish to compare an Arab plough in a wheat field with what Aron calls an ‘up-to-date Jewish farmer in the dry-farming region of the Jordan Valley’. It is actually Aron in his western suit and felt homburg, riding on the high seat of a rather primitive, American-made, mechanised binder, driven by his very trusty aide and companion Abu Farrid in a rather shabbier, conical hat of his own. Arab and Jew work side by side, master and helper in perfect harmony. Or so we imagine...

But let us continue with Aron’s own words on the subject: 

‘From the very beginning of civilization, we are justified in asserting wild wheat to be the progenitor of our cultivated wheats. This explains why it was so desirable to find the wild form. I believe that the existence of all of these prototypes - that is to say - of oats, wheat, barley, and rye in a single region, Syria and Palestine, tends to show that the cultivation of cereals must have originated there, or at least in closely adjoining localities. Among the known cultivated wheats there are three that still retain the brittle rachis - ‘rachis’ from the Greek for backbone or spine, allowing the seed to be easily ‘shattered’ when touched or blown by the wind. Einkorn - ‘Triticum monococcum’, Emmer - ‘Triticum dicoccum’, and Spelt ‘Triticum spelta’...’

Triticum dicoccum/ dicoccoides from Aron's Botanical Diary

He describes with loving detail the ‘brittle rachis’ or spine of wild wheat which when cultivated grows more rigid and therefore stronger. Aron helpfully illustrates his point in Plate V1 of his ‘Agricultural and Botanical explorations in Palestine’, with a nice image of a plump spike of Triticum dicoccum/ dicoccoides, showing glumes and rachis similar to that of Durum Wheat.

Aron is not the first to be obsessed with finding the progenitor of wheat as he records with a receptive nod, to his predecessor, German agronomist and botanist, Friedrich August Körnicke:

‘In 1873 botanist Kornicke, when preparing the notes for his standard work on the cereals, had discovered in the herbarium of the National Museum of Vienna, among the stems of Hordeum spontaneum gathered at Easheyya, on the northwestern side of Mount Hermon, in 1855, part of an ear of a graminiferous plant which he considered to be a wild wheat and which resembled the emmer (Triticum dicoccum). But, with an unaccountable forgetfulness, Kornicke did not speak of this discovery in the work mentioned and it was not until 1889 that he reported his discovery. Afterwards Kornicke returned repeatedly to the discussion of the question, urging all botanists who went into the region of Mount Hermon to give their attention to the subject and trying to induce the scientific academies of Vienna and Berlin to organize an expedition for that purpose. His efforts, however, were in vain...’

Botanist Friedrich August Körnicke

Poor Mr. Körnicke will be forgotten in the dusty annals of Vienna’s academy of science and Aron who will continue his predecessor’s researches will be recognised as the ‘discoverer’ of wild wheat.

‘PREHISTORIC WHEAT FOUND IN OTTOMAN PALESTINE’

But not before many disappointments and false starts.  

It would have to wait until October 1906 when the New York Time’s reports his finds: 

‘PREHISTORIC WHEAT FOUND IN PALESTINE; Sought in Vain for Centuries, It Is at Last Encountered in Original Wild Form.’

  ****

Aron is the archetypal, pioneer farmer but he is also a scientist, botanist and agronomist, and above all he is a Zionist who dreams of a green national homeland for the Jews. 

Aron with Jewish National Fund Tree Planting Certificate

His image might have been taken from one of the tree planting certificates of the time, idealised depictions of sturdy settlers with hoes and spades. The Diaspora sends funds for groves of saplings at all its celebrations and commemorations.

JNF Tree Planting Certificate

Trees to fill our treeless land, forests to cover our ancient hills. Hills claimed, of course, by our Arab neighbours. Forests which will replace the villages that once stood there...’