208 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



the improvement of the breed, but there is something be- 

 yond this, for the best breeds introduced soon degenerate 

 from lack of nourishment. The country must be better 

 governed, property made more secure, before farmers will 

 find it to their advantage to give their cattle more than 

 the scanty grass they can pick up here and there on the 

 parched hillsides. The improvement of implements will fol- 

 low as a matter of course. The same thing is true of the 

 ordinary horses : barley and straw alone, and the treatment 

 received through many generations, have produced the 

 small, wiry, enduring hack of Asia Minor, as far removed 

 from the lithe form and airy grace of the Arab steed as 

 light is from darkness. 



The spade is triangular in shape, with a straight handle, 

 longer than a man is tall. A few inches above the blade, a 

 piece of wood is mortised in, upon which the foot is set, to 

 force the blade deep into the earth. The length of the 

 handle enables the laborer to lay his whole weight upon the 

 extremity, and afterwards use it as a lever in order to raise 

 a large quantity of soil, which he merely turns over. " Shal- 

 low ploughing but deep spading seem then to be the two 

 chief rules of Oriental agriculture." 



The hoe has a broad blade, not flat, but slightly concave, 

 the handle very short, compelling the laborer to crouch 

 to his work. The sickle is about the same form as our own. 

 The scythe shorter, heavier, clumsier, the snath nearly 

 straight, with but one handle, the left hand grasping the 

 snath itself. The blade has no curve worth mentioning. 

 Fortunately for the back of the laborer, hay is in so little de- 

 mand that the scythe is practically used only in the cradle, 

 and that not by Turks, but almost exclusively by the Bui- 



