Ж. гі. valley, surrounded by high walls; a row of m 
that there із по silk-culture now in c 
_ disease among the worms.” 
14 DR. J. E. T. AITCHISON ON THE BOTANY OF 
these semi-nomads disappear with their flocks to the great grazing-grounds of the sur- 
rounding country, and only return late in the year to winter their flocks. The cultivation, 
as it at present exists, is very poor and second-rate, compared with what it might be under 
а strong and vigorous government, favourably disposed to the agricultural development of 
the country. The people look and are miserably poor and badly clad ; the houses are all 
more or less in ruins, walls unrepaired, many orchards running to waste, and fields lying 
fallow. Everywhere signs of decay and poverty were apparent, a great contrast to the 
state of things found at Lash-jowain. Yet the valley looked capable of maintaining 
100,000 inhabitants, were only labour and capital forthcoming to extend the cultivated 
area by developing and improving the present system of irrigation-works, for without 
a liberal artificial supply of water at this altitude nothing will grow. 
There are no indigenous trees in the valley, except on the islands and low lands of the 
river, where in some instances dense forests of Populus euphratica occur, with several 
large species of Tamaris, as T. tetragyna, Т. Pallasii, T. tetrandra, and others, and 
Lycium barbarum, remarkable in early spring for its vivid green foliage. Climbing 
over them were Clematis orientalis, Cynanchum acutum, Asparagus Breslerianus, and 
A. verticillatus, with Dodartia orientalis, which has a very curious, stiff, broom-like 
habit, beneath. | Erianthus Ravenne, Phragmitis, and Arundo are common: the two 
latter especially along the embankments of all irrigation-channels. On the receding of 
the river in early summer it was extraordinary how millions of a small fungus, Agaricus 
(Naucoria) Vervacti sprang up out of the freshly deposited soil. At Kumani-besht, where 
the river widens, forming many islands, Halozylon Ammodendron constitutes a great 
part of the thicket already described, and is here almost à tree, both in height and in 
girth—what a contrast to the locality in which I first met this shrub, in the sandy dunes 
of Baluchistan! Its presence here no doubt helps to prove its dependence upon mois- 
ture. Cultivation, as already stated, can only be carried out with the aid of irrigation ; 
hence the villages and fields are situated in the vicinity of the river, unless, as at 
Ghorian, which is at some distance, large irrigation-channels have been opened. The 
houses of all these villages are built of sun-dried bricks, having, with few exceptions, 
domed roofs, and there is generally but one door, and in the roof an outlet for smoke, 
such a thing as a window being unknown. For winter accommodation they are very 
comfortable, but in summer the heat within them is unbearable; hence all those who 
_ ean, live out in the open under the cover of black tents, made of goats’ hair blanketing 
fixed on a wooden framework, sufficiently raised to permit of a free passage for air and 
yet preserve a certain amount of privacy. The orchards are here, as in the Harut 
ulberry-trees running round the inner side 
are grown for feeding silkworms. A native, in pointing out these to me, said, ** When 
you see large trees they are no longer employed for this purpose.” 
| Ор my observing 
that all the trees at that village were large, he admitted the fact, but added, * You know 
omparison to what there has been, owing to the 
oe ... In several villages, owing to this disease, silk-culture had been entirely abandoned. 
von For silk-culture the trees are pollarded about 
four feet from the ground, and at this 
