FOREST CONDITIONS IN WEST PERSIA 713 



and vineyards. No individual farm houses exist by themselves out 

 in the country, as everyone hurried home to the shelter of the village 

 when the darkness comes, it being often as much as one's life is worth 

 to be out alone at night, and single, rural dwellings would be at the 

 mercy of any band of robbers that happened along. At harv'est time, 

 however, parties of men usually stay at the threshing floors or guard 

 the orchards or vineyards. Security of property or life is never very 

 great, compared with America. 



The ignorance of the people is profound. As an illustration, the idea 

 of breeding animals to better the strain is practically unheard of. All 

 sheep, goats, cattle, and poultry are scrub stock, although the sheep 

 and goats are often comparatively good. The idea of spraying fruit 

 trees or vineyards is unknown to all but a few who have seen some of 

 the missionaries spray their trees. Caterpillers are allowed to destroy 

 everything that they get on, or else, as in the case of rich men, they 

 are hand-picked by men, boys and women at so much a caterpiller. 



Along with this ignorance there is a crude sort of knowledge, the 

 product of age-long experience. The reproduction of trees by coppice,, 

 and by cuttings, pollarding willows, grafting, budding, layering, and 

 the planting of trees along irrigation ditches are common knowledge 

 and practice. Along the line of close utilization, however, they excell — 

 'every twig, leaf and piece of bark being used for fuel if for nothing 

 else. 



Little or no land is owned by the poor man, the rich khan (gentle- 

 man) owning often a dozen villages or more and renting them out to 

 the poor tennant farmers who are really little better than serfs. There 

 is scarcely anything which directly contributes to the poverty and 

 backwardness of the country as does this pernicious land svstem. 

 Under it the rich khan who owns the land rents it out to the farmer 

 at the annual rental of one-third of the gross crop at the end of the 

 harvest. If the farmer supplies the seed he keeps two-thirds of the 

 crop himself, but if he has to get the seed from someone else that man 

 gets one-third. This land-rental system works great injustice, even 

 under the best conditions, and often the khans will refuse to rent the 

 land unless they are also allowed to supply the seed, thus taking two- 

 thirds of the crop as their aniuial rent. The result of the system is 

 that the farmers are kept poor anrl arc usually only a month or les.s 

 ahead of starvation, a crop failure meaning real famine at once. Mean- 

 while the rich man li\(N in idleness and dissipation. Under this .system 



