Syria: An Economic Survey 



durrha, the soil is not plowed until the summer, but is allowed to 

 remain as black fallow. At the end of the summer it is planted 

 with winter crops. The fellah tries to maintain an equilibrium of 

 nutritive substances by planting first nitrogen collectors (legumes) 

 and deep-rooted plants, and then nitrogen consumers and shallow- 

 rooted plants. He is careful to loosen and clean his soil by means 

 of repeated plowing and frequent black fallow. 



2. Agricultural Implements. 



The farms of the fellaheen, unprogressive as they are, have 

 the merit of being well-balanced and adapted to natural and 

 economic conditions, whereas the dairy farms of the German colo- 

 nists depend on the proximity of a large town, and the vineyards 

 and orange plantations of the Jewish colonists require capital, 

 co-operative production, a market, and easy access to a port. More- 

 over those Jewish colonies whose chief product is grain (especially 

 those around Tiberias) have not yet evolved a successful modus 

 operandi. A new system of husbandry will have to be found, with 

 other crop rotations and other branches of husbandry, so that the 

 individual may produce his own requirements (vegetables, fruit, 

 poultry, eggs, honey, milk, etc.). The primitive implements of the 

 fellah are suited to conditions; his plow conforms with the small 

 dragging power of his oxen, which could not begin to move a 

 European plow ; his sickle can be used on stony ground, where the 

 cutting machine is valueless. He would gain nothing by replacing 

 his threshing-drag with a threshing-machine, as his time costs 

 nothing. In a word, innovations must be introduced gradually, 

 as Syrian agriculture becomes more European in character. Many 

 of the machines imported by the Palestinian colonists were found 

 to be impractical. Among those, however, which proved useful, 

 are the European plows, reaping machines (on cleared and even 

 soil), harrows, sub-soil plows, rotary plows and chaff cutters. Sev- 

 eral threshing machines are in use in the Jewish colonies, as well 

 as cultivators and diskplows. 



3. Draft and Breeding Animals. 



Animal husbandry is much neglected by the fellaheen. In 

 the Jewish colonies horses and mules are used in preference to oxen. 



4. Land Improvement and Fertility. 



In certain sections of the mountain regions the declivities 

 have been skilfully terraced in order to prevent the soil from 



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