The cultivation of the date-palm was widely extended in Chaldaea, probably from very early times.  The combination of sand, moisture, and a moderately saline soil, in which it delights, was there found in perfection, more especially in the lower country, which had but recently been reclaimed from the sea.  Even now, when cultivation is almost wholly laid aside, a thick forest of luxuriant date-trees clothes the banks of the Euphrates on either side, from the vicinity of Mugheir to its embouchure at the head of the Persian Gulf.  Anciently the tract was much more generally wooded with them.  “Palm-trees grow in numbers over the whole of the flat country,” says one of the most observant and truthful of travellers—­Herodotus.  According to the historians of Julian, a forest of verdure extended from the upper edge of the alluvium, which he crossed, to Mesene, and the shores of the sea.  When the Arabian conquerors settled themselves in the lower country, they were so charmed with the luxuriant vegetation and the abundant date-groves, that they compared the region with the country about Damascus and reckoned it among their four earthly paradises.  The propagation of the date-palm was chiefly from seed.  In Chaldaea, however, it was increased sometimes from suckers or offshoots thrown up from the stem of the old tree; at other times by a species of cutting, the entire head being struck off with about three feet of stem, notched, and then planted in moist ground.  Several varieties of the tree were cultivated; but one was esteemed above all the rest, both for the size and flavor of the fruit.  It bore the name of “Royal,” and grew only in one place near Babylon.

Beside these two precious products, Chaldaea produced excellent barley, millet, sesame, vetches and fruits of all kinds.  It was, however, deficient in variety of trees, possessing scarcely any but the palm and the cypress.  Pomegranates, tamarisks, poplars, and acacias are even now almost the only trees besides the two above mentioned, to be found between Samarah and the Persian Gulf.  The tamarisk grows chiefly as a shrub along the rivers, but sometimes attains the dimensions of a tree, as in the case of the “solitary tree” still growing upon the ruins of Babylon.  The pomegranates with their scarlet flowers, and the acacias with their light and graceful foliage, ornament the banks of the streams, generally intermingled with the far more frequent palm, while oranges, apples, pears, and vines are successfully cultivated in the gardens and orchards.

[Illustration:  Plate 5]

Among the vegetable products of Chaldaea must be noticed, as almost peculiar to the region, its enormous reeds. [Plate V.] These, which are represented with much spirit in the sculptures of Sennacherib, cover the marshes in the summer-time, rising often to the height of fourteen or fifteen feet.  The Arabs of the marsh region form their houses of this material, binding the stems of the reeds together, and bending them into arches, to make the skeleton of their buildings; while, to form the walls, they stretch across from arch to arch mats made of the leaves.  From the same fragile substance they construct their terradas or light boats, which, when rendered waterproof by means of bitumen, will support the weight of three or four men.