Book I. AGRICULTURE IN ASIA. 139 



several fruit-trees are regularly irrigated in India. The grand bread corn of Asia is rice, 

 a watered grain ; and the most valuable fruits, those of the palm family ; the most 

 useful agricultural laborer is the ox, and his family are also the most valuable as pasturage 

 animals. 



SuBSECT. 1 . Present State of AgrkiUture in Asiatic Turkey, 



847. Asiatic Turkey extends from the Arcliipelago 1050 miles to Ararat in Persia on 

 the east, and from the Euphrates 1100 miles to the Caucasian mountains on the north. 

 It contains a number of provinces differing materially from each other in natural circum-i 

 stances, and artificial culture ; but, unfortunately for us, very little is known of their 

 agriculture. In general, the Asiatic Turks are to be considered as a wandering and pas- 

 toral people, cultivating no more corn than what is sufficient for their own maintenance ; 

 and scarcely half civilized. 



848. The climate of Asia Minor has been always considered as excellent. The heat of 

 the summer is tempered by numerous chains of high mountains, some of which are covered 

 constantly with snow. The aspect of Asiatic Turkey is mountainous, intermingled with 

 spacious and beautiful plains, wliich afford pasture to the numerous flocks and herds of the 

 Turkomans. The soil is various ; but the chief agricultural products are wheat, l)arley, 

 and doura (millet). It abounds also with grapes, olives, and dates. In Syria, the agri- 

 culture is deplorable, and the peasants are in a wretched condition, being sold, as in 

 Poland, with the soil, and their constant fare being barley bread, onions, and water. 



849. The numerous mountains of Asiatic Turkey are frequently clothed with immense 

 forests of pines, oaks, beeches, elms, and other trees ; and the southern shores of the Black 

 Sea present many gloomy forests of great extent. The inhabitants are hence supplied with 

 abundance of fuel, in defect of pit-coal, which has not been explored in any part of Asiatic 

 Turkey. Sudden conflagrations arise from the heedless waste of the caravans, which, 

 instead of cutting off a few branches, often set fire to a standing tree. The extensive pro- 

 vinces of Natolia, Syria, and Mesopotamia, have been little 

 accessible to European curiosity, since their reduction under 

 the Turkish yoke. In Pinkerton's Geography we have a 

 catalogue of those plants and trees that have been found wild 

 in the Asiatic part of the Ottoman territory. Several dyeing 

 drugs and articles of the materia medica are imported from 

 tlie Levant, among which are madder, and a variety called 

 alizan, wliich grows about Smyrna, and affords a much finer 

 red dye than the European kind ; jalap, scammony, sebesten, 

 the ricinus {Riciniis communis, Jig. 120.), yielding by ex- 

 pression castor-oil, squirting cucumber, coloquintida, opium 

 poppy, and spikenard. The best horses in Asiatic Turkey 

 are of Arabian extract ; but mules and asses are more gene- 

 rally used. The beef is scarce and bad, the mutton superior, 

 and the kid a favorite repast. Other animals are the bear, 

 tiger, hyaena, wild-boar, jackal, and dogs in great abundance. 

 On the summits of Caucasus is found the ibex, or rock- 

 goat; at Angora, singular goats and cats ; the gazel, deer, ti "iii 

 and hares in great abundance are found in Asia Minor. The partridges are generally 

 of the red-legged kind, larger than the European ; fish is plentiful and excellent. 



SuBSECT. 2. Present State of Agriculture in Persia. 



850. The climate of Persia is various in different parts ; depending less on difference 

 of latitude than on the nature and elevation of the country, so that it is said to be the 

 country of three climates. The northern provinces on the Caspian are comparatively cold 

 and moist : in the centre of the kingdom, as Chardin observes, the winter begins in 

 November, and continues till March, commonly severe, with ice and snow, the latter 

 falling chiefly on the mountains, and remaining on those three days' journey west of Ispahan 

 for eight months in the year. From March to May high winds are frequent ; but from 

 May to September the air is serene, refreshed by breezes in the night. The heat, how- 

 ever, is during this period excessive in the low countries, bordering on the India ocean 

 and Persian gulf, in Chusistan, the deserts of Kerman, and also in some parts of the 

 interior, particularly at Tehraun, the capital. From September to November the winds 

 again prevail. In the centre and south the air is generally dry ; thunder and lightning 

 are uncommon, and a rainbow is seldom seen; earthquakes are almost unknown; but 

 heat is often destructive in the spring. Near the Persian gulf the hot wind, called 

 ** samiel," sometimes suffocates the unwary traveller. The summers are, in general, 

 very mild, after ascending the mountains. To the north of Shiraz the winters are severe, 

 insonuich, that in the vicinity of Tehraun and Tabreez, all communication is cut off for 



