100 



As is the case with us, when land is left out of cultivation in Tunisia it 

 carries very tolerable winter feed, representing to the livestock of Arab 

 owners a short-lived horn of plenty. In the six or seven dry months of the 

 year, however, annuals make no further growth, except in a few favored spots ; 

 and, when what little is available on the stubbles has been consumed and 

 trodden under foot, livestock not only lose condition but must face inevitable 

 starvation, unless relieved from the hoarded stores provided by the forethought 

 of man. And with the natives these never go very far ; the small heaps of 

 chopped straw and chaff that accumulate round the native threshing-floors 

 are usually doled out with occasional handfuls of barley to their working 

 horses and bullocks. Sheep, on the other hand, earn their livelihood on 

 foot. In charge of knowing shepherds they roam from one end of the Regency 

 to the other in search of food, which is paid for either in kind or at a fixed 

 rate per head. On the whole, even in the most favorable of years, the condi- 

 tion of the livestock of the Arabs is usually deplorable by the beginning of 

 winter ; whilst in years of drought they die away like flies, or may be purchased 

 for a mere song. 



In some respects the French landowners are even less favorably situated- 

 They may be said to have endeavored to adapt themselves to the methods 

 of the Arabs, without, 'however, possessing the inherited instincts of the 

 latter to turn them to best advantage. The flock of the French colon, for 

 instance, cannot travel when feed gives out on his own land, except in the 

 care of the Arab shepherd, who alone possesses the necessary experience of 

 the available feed-ng grounds ; and when at a d.'stance he is apt to think 

 more of his own special interests than of those of his master, >for ancient 

 custom has decreed that he shall be part proprietor of the flock. And since 

 the time of Jacob this arrangement has always proved a rather one-sided one. 

 Hence the opinion very common in Tunisia that sheep are profitable only in 

 the hands of an Arab proprietor. 



The French proprietor, albeit possessed of inherited Western forethought 

 for the morrow, is almost equally at a disadvantage where the feeding of 

 horses and horned cattle are concerned. In th : s special direction the adoption 

 of modern tillage and harvest'ng machinery has not improved his lot. They 

 have converted his stubbles into less valuable feeding grounds than those of 

 the natives, in which without particular difficulty sheep can find the means 

 of gleaning even behind the gleaners ; whilst the long straw and summer 

 growth of the native stubbles are of value to horses and cattle alike, besides 

 returning to the soil some portion of the humus, so essential to its go:d 

 mechanical condition in all hot dry countries. The French landowner, in 

 the great majority of cases, owns no hay ; but he knows that for centuries, 

 in the absence of natural feed, the Arabs have fed their horses and cattle 

 on straw and a little barley grain. Hence he thinks himself compelled to 

 follow the example of those who alone are possessed of secular experience ; 



