Syria: An Economic Survey 



he is forced to buy, thus spending a considerable part of his earn- 

 ings. If the colonists, with the help of their wives, were to produce 

 vegetables, dairy products, poultry, etc., their situation would be 

 far less hazardous. 



The farmhands in the plantation colonies are Arabs from the 

 neighboring villages, and also Jews. The Jewish farm hands are 

 either young people from. Eastern Europe whose love for Palestine 

 and for agriculture has induced them to become laborers, or else 

 Circassian and Yemenite Jews who have immigrated to Palestine 

 in the last ten or twenty years, and are used to a very frugal exis- 

 tence. The wages of the laborers ranges from 1.25 to 2 francs a 

 day; expert laborers are paid higher wages for special jobs. The 

 Jewish laborers who have been drafted from urban callings do not 

 accustom themselves rapidly to farm work in the hot Palestinian 

 climate; many are unable to do so, and others persevere in the 

 work only at the cost of a tremendous effort, despite which their 

 work is inferior to that of the native Arab laborer. Nevertheless, 

 in March, 1915, there were 2,381 laborers and their families in 

 Judaea, including 941 Yemenites. Before the war, besides these 

 Jewish laborers, there were two or three times as many Arab 

 laborers. In the colonies of Lower Galilee where grain cultivation 

 is the rule, there are numbers of Jewish laborers, in contrast to 

 Upper Galilee, where the Jewish colonist usually leases his land 

 to the Arabs. 



The following table gives a list of all the Jewish agricultural 

 settlements, exclusive of those which are no longer inhabited 

 (Yehudiyeh near Petach Tikvah, and Tantura near Zichron Jacob) 

 and of the land which is owned by Jews, but has not yet been 

 settled, namely, about 56,000 dunam in the Hauran and 30,000 

 dunam in Western Palestine. 



THE JEWISH AGRICULTURAL SETTLEMENTS OF PALESTINE 



IN 1914. 



Name Founded Area Pop. Principal products Remarks 



I. In Judaea, near Jaffa. 



1. Mikveh Israel 1870 2,612 100 Wine, oranges, Agricultural 



vegetables, School of 



cereals, milk, the A. I. U. 



2. Rishon 1'Zion* ...1882 10,926 1,500 Wine, oranges, Big wine- 



3. Wadi Hanin (Ness almonds. cellars. 



Tsionah) 1882 2,390 200 Oranges, wine, 



. almonds. 



* Including the laborers' settlement Nachlat Yehudah. 



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