WEST PERSIA THE WOOD-FAMINE COUNTRY 



581 



cold weather. 

 The consump- 

 tion of char- 

 coal for fuel 

 therefore i s 

 very great. In- 

 dustrially also 

 much charcoal 

 is used. The 

 black smiths, 

 s i Iv e r smiths, 

 and other met- 

 al workers use 

 it and taking it 

 all in all char- 

 coal is a most 

 important for- 

 est product in 

 West Persia. 

 It is made in 

 the villages 

 and brought 

 into towns and 

 cit'es on don- 

 key back. 



To an Amer- 

 ican the use of charcoal as a fuel does not seem very 

 primitive and one soon gets used to it. But it comes 

 rather as a shock to see how almost anything and ev- 

 erything that will burn is "cast into the oven" for 

 that is the right term to use in describing the stoking 



LOOKING DOWN ON AX UNPROTECTED PERSIAN VALLEY. THE EROSION HERE, FOLLOW- 

 ING COMPLETE DENUDATION, IS VERY GREAT. 



of the bake- 

 oven of the 

 country. In the 

 fall the poor 

 women go out 

 into the fields 

 and orchards 

 and get j)er- 

 mission to pick 

 up the dead 

 twigs, leaves, 

 etc., and car- 

 ry them away 

 in bags. Then 

 most of the 

 manure is 

 moulded into 

 cakes, left to 

 dry in the 

 summer sun 

 until firm 

 enough, and 

 then stacked 

 care fully in 

 big piles so 

 plastered over 

 as to shed water, and so kept until the time comes to 

 burn them. This practice of burning up all of the ma- 

 nure means a steady robbing of the soil and a steady 

 deterioration of the quality of the agricultural land. 

 This is a good illustration of direct effect of forest 



A TYPICAL PERSIAN LANDSCAPE WITH A VILLAGE IN THE MIDDLE liACKGROUND. THE OUTLYING COUNTRY HAS BEEN 

 STRIPPED BARE OF VEGETATION TO FURNISH THE NECESSITIES OF LIFE TO A WOOD-STARVED PEOPLE. 



