DAHR, LEBANON — CRIST 421 



upon the market and the prices obtained for crops, the problem of 

 marketing should receive close attention if farm incomes are to be 

 increased. In spite of publicity and propaganda the back-to-the- 

 farm movement has succeeded nowhere, least of all in the United 

 States, as long as the farm was still uninviting and unrewarding. 

 What has held young people of the present generation on the farm 

 in the United States is not publicity campaigns, but an income that 

 makes it possible for them to afford automobiles, electric lights, 

 running water, up-to-date plumbing, washing machines, milking ma- 

 chines, and so on. The careful selection of seeds, the use of fertilizers, 

 the application of modern tools and methods, and the control of in- 

 sects and plant diseases would result in a higher money income, 

 which would in turn be reflected in a gradual but general rise in the 

 level of living, and quite possibly in gradual cultural changes. Even 

 the most apathetic of men want to better their condition. If at the 

 end of each year of hard work he is as far as ever from being able to at- 

 tain the most ordinary comforts of life, the farmer would be considered 

 unnatural who would not want to change his lot. It seems axiomatic 

 that as long as urban centers — even the slums of urban centers — ^hold 

 more attraction for living than rural villages, just so long will the 

 current of population be away from the country. Therefore it seems 

 logical that any program, to achieve lasting results, should be built 

 on the firm foundation of peasants who are reasonably well-fed, well- 

 housed, well-clothed, and who are in consequence imbued with a cer- 

 tain amount of optimism as to their continued well-being, both physi- 

 cal and cultural. 



The increased income derived from the improvement in agriculture 

 should be used in raising the level of living. Its reinvestment in the 

 agricultural enterprise or in better living is preferable to using it 

 for the conspicuous consumption of goods. If labor-saving devices 

 merely make it possible for the men to have more leisure time in 

 which to squander in the cafes the money saved by the introduction 

 of the new machines, the gain has been nullified. 



CONCLUSION 



The village of Dahr — as indeed almost the whole of Lebanon — is 

 atypical in the Near Eastern panorama, for as one goes inland he sees 

 that these hardy mountaineers whose strenuous toil is so meagerly 

 requited are relatively well off. For the most part they own and 

 farm their own small, fragmented parcels of land. Throughout the 

 whole of the Near East peasant proprietors are found only under 

 certain rare conditions and in certain limited areas — in mountainous 

 regions difficult of access, in villages in which land is held and worked 

 in common, and near some of the larger cities which are surrounded 



