142 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



geons are numerous, and partridges are large and excellent, 

 nightingale, enlivens the spring with his varied song. 

 The Persians have been long accustomed to tame 

 beasts of prey and even to hunt v?ith lions, tigers, 

 leopards, panthers, and ounces. 



The bool-beell, or oriental 

 .25 



860. The Persians hunt the quail in a curious manner {Jig. 125.); 

 they stick two poles in their girdle, upon which they place either 

 their outer coat or a pair of trowsers, and these at a distance are 

 intended to look like the horns of an animal ; they then with a 

 hand-net prowl about the fields, and the quail seeing a form 

 more like a beast than a man, permits it to approach so near as 

 to allow the hunter to throw his net over it : in this manner they catch these birds with astonishing 

 rapidity. 



861. Of the implements and operations 

 of Persian agriculture little is known 

 with precision. The plough is said to 

 be small, and drawn by lean cattle, so 

 that it merely scratches the ground. 

 The plough of Erzerum (Jig. 126.), is a 

 clumsy implement, on the share of which 

 the driver stands, both for the sake of 

 being carried along and of pressing down 

 the wedge. After the plough and har- 

 row the spade is used for forming the 

 ground into squares, with ledges or 

 little banks to retain the water. The 



dung used is chiefly human, and that of pigeons, mingled with earth and preserved for 



two years, to diminish its heat. 



862. The dung of 



pigeons is so highly ^ ^ 



prized in Persia that 

 many pigeon-houses 

 (fg. 1 27. ) are erect- 

 ed at a distance from 

 habitations for the 

 Sole purpose of col- 

 lecting their manure. 

 They are large round 

 towers, rather broad- 

 er at the bottom than 

 at the top, and 

 crowned by conical 



spiracles through which the pigeons descend. Their interior resembles a honeycomb, 

 forming thousands of holes for nests ; and the outsides are painted and ornamented. 

 The dung is applied almost entirely to the rearing of melons, a fruit indispensable to 

 the natives of warm countries during the great heats of summer, and also the most rapidly 

 raised in seasons of scarcity ; and hence the reason that during the famine of Samaria a 

 cab of dove's dung was sold for five pieces of silver. (2 KingSy vi. 25. ) The Persians do 

 not eat pigeons. {Moriers Second Journey, die. 141., 



863. No arable culture is carried on in Persia without artificial watering ; and various 

 modes are adopted for raising the element from wells and rivers for this purpose. The 

 Persian wheel is well known. The deficiency of rivers in Persia has obliged the natives 

 to turn all their ingenuity to the discovery of springs, and to the bringing of their streams 

 to the surface of the earth. To effect this, when a spring has been discovered, they dig a 

 well until they meet with the water ; and if they find that its quantity is sufficient to 

 repay them for proceeding with the work, they dig a second well, so distant from the other as 

 to allow a subterranean communication between both. ' They then ascertain the nearest line 

 .of communication with the level of the plain upon which the water is to be brought into 

 use, and dig a succession of wells, with subterranean communications between the whole 

 suite of them, until the water at length comes to the sur- 

 face, when it is conducted by banked-up channels into 

 the fields to be irrigated. The extent of country through 

 which such fields are sometimes conducted is quite ex. 

 traordinary. In making the wells {fig. 128,) a shaft is 

 first dug, then a wooden handle is placed over it, from; 

 which is suspended a leathern bucket, which is filled with [ 

 the excavated matter by a man below, and wound up 

 by another above. Where the soil is against the mouth of the wells, they are secured by 



128 



