“I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted in them trees of every fruit” (Ecclesiastes 2:5). “I made myself gardens and orchards” – in its plain sense. “And I planted in them trees of every fruit” – even peppers.12Peppercorn trees are indigenous to foreign countries; he would import them with their soil and plant them in the Land of Israel. Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: Solomon would use the demons; he would send them to India and they would bring him water from there,13This was so the plants would grow in the soil and be irrigated with the water to which they were accustomed to grow. and he would water [the pepper trees] here and they would bear fruit.
Rabbi Yannai son of Rabbi Shimon said to him: If you say so, you are merely exhausting [Solomon].14Doing so did not require wisdom, just hard work. Rather, Solomon, in his wisdom, ascertained the foundation of the land, and determined which foundation was directed to there.15He determined the place in Jerusalem that was the foundation of the peppers’ country of origin. He planted it on the foundation of its land, and in that way it bore fruit.