Climate and Productivity of Palestine.
As we might expect in a land possessing such a varied topography, nearly every known climate is represented in Palestine. Along the seashore the salt breezes of ocean blow; the climate of the Coast Plain is mild and pleasant, and favorable to the growth of gardens and orchards; within the Central Range itself several varieties of climate prevail, and in the low valley of the Jordan and in the region of the Dead Sea, the heat of the tropics obtains. The plateaus of the Eastern Range are visited by health-giving breezes, which moderate the atmosphere. Farther east and south extends the desert, with its parched sands and sultry air, yet in the very sight of these desert wastes rise snowy mountain peaks.
"There are palms in Jericho and pine forests in Lebanon. In the Ghor, in summer, you are under a temperature of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and yet you see glistening the snow-fields of Hermon. All the intermediate steps between these extremes the eye can see at one sweep from Carmel—the sands and palms of the coast; the wheat-fields of Esdraelon, the oaks and sycamores of Galilee; the pines, the peaks, the snows of Anti-Lebanon. How closely these differences lie to each other! Take a section of the country across Judaea. With its palms and shadoofs the Philistine Plain might be a part of the Egyptian Delta; but on the hills of the Shephelah which overlook it, you are in the scenery of Southern Europe; the Judaean moors which overlook them are like the barer uplands of Central Germany; the shepherds wear sheep-skin cloaks and live under stone roofs—sometimes the snow lies deep; a few miles farther east and you are down on the desert among the Bedouin, with their tents of hair and their cotton clothing; a few miles farther still, and you drop to torrid heat in the Jordan Valley; a few miles beyond that and you rise to the plateau of the Belka, where the Arabs say 'the cold is always at home.' Yet from Philistia to the Belka is scarcely seventy miles."[5]
The year is divided into a wet and a dry season. The rains begin the last of October and are over by the last of March. These are called the "early" rains in the Old Testament. Showers which fall in the late spring are called the "latter" rains. From May until October the summer is dry. The vegetation is sustained in many places by the heavy dews. Water is not abundant and the rain-water which falls during the winter months is stored in wells and cisterns for use in the dry months.
Flowers of many varieties are found through the land and range from those common to tropical and desert lands to those native to high altitudes. As in Egypt the fertile land borders upon the shifting desert sands, so in Palestine the strong contrasts between the productive and waste lands is the more marked because of their proximity.
Palestine is not a land of heavy forests. To be sure, ages upon ages of habitation have divested many slopes of native timber, but evidences go to show that at no time since records began has the country been heavily forested. Today the woodlands are frequently mere undergrowth. Orchards are plentiful. The olive is most widely cultivated; apricots, figs, oranges, almond and walnut trees are grown, and the vine is grown extensively. Grain fields wave on the plains, in the valleys and lowlands, wheat, barley and millet being most abundant. Vegetables of many varieties are commonly raised. Beans, tomatoes, onions and melons are produced in large quantities. Grass is grown only on small areas, pasturage being for the most part found on the public land. During the summer months pasturage exists only near the large fountains or the carefully built cisterns. These are jealously guarded by their owners. In earlier times and now, to some extent, wells and pools are provided to preserve water falling during the winter, and these are for the use of all who come to them with their flocks and herds.
We find no such condition here as in Egypt, where crops grow abundantly if the seeds be but once dropped into the ground. On the contrary, while grains, fruits and garden produce are generally grown, care and constant industry are required to bring forth good yields. Certain portions of the country are adapted to the art of husbandry, while others have always been better suited to cattle and sheep raising. So much of the tablelands is rocky and stony and unsuited for cultivation that no arable spots are allowed to go untended.
[1] George Adam Smith: Historical Geography of the Holy Land, 149.
[2] George Adam Smith: Historical Geography of the Holy Land, 208.