406 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E, F. 
areas in the Bro and Gower were settled. The Blaenau was penetrated 
from early Bronze Age times and the later penetration, to which sections of 
existing. trackways, with earthworks, presumably date, may be assigned to 
the period of vegetational changes in sub-Atlantic time (first millennium B.c.). 
The higher, bleaker parts of the moorland were used only for seasonal 
migrations, or else, with the forested valleys, avoided. 
Miss ALice B. LENNIE.—Agriculture in Mesopotamia in ancient and modern 
times (11.0). 
Ancient records give much information that throws light on the antiquity 
of many modern practices, and suggests that the climate has varied little. 
Modern barrages, and pumps run by oil-engines are innovations, but the 
summer level of some canals is still raised by temporary earth dams, and old 
methods of watering the fields still persist. 
Date Gardens—’Iraq with some 30 million palms is still the foremost 
country for dates, and the archaic methods of culture are almost unchanged, 
e.g. propagation by offshoots, artificial pollination which requires one male 
palm to fifty or sixty females. The walled gardens, intersected by canals, 
occupied the more valuable sites near the cities and bordering the rivers or 
main canals. 
Fruit trees were planted between the palms. Fig, vine, pomegranate, 
citron and mulberry were, and are, the commonest. Orange groves at 
Baghdad to-day require the palms for shade and protection from hot winds. 
Under all were fodder crops like lucerne, vast quantities of garlic and onions, 
and beds of other vegetables of which Babylonia had a notable variety. 
Gherkins were abundant, also flowers and aromatic plants. 
Arable Farms.—The fenced fields, of a few acres, were cultivated by ox- 
plough and irrigated. ‘To-day wild pigs often devastate the ripening rice, 
and locusts are still a plague. In early spring before the grain was shot, 
the rank growth was cut and domestic animals pastured on it for a time. 
At harvest (end of April to mid-May) the ears were reaped by sickle, then the 
straw cut and stubble burnt. Fields were often rented for a third of the 
crop, or for fixed rents paid in kind, but not necessarily from the produce of 
the field. In the Neo-Babylonian Empire fixed money rents were in vogue. 
Barley, much the most important cereal, formed a standard of value. 
Emmer was used for bread for feast-days ; wheat, at twice the price of 
barley, used only by the rich. Other winter crops were pulses and flax. 
Sesame was the chief summer crop, with durra. 'Tree-cotton was introduced 
under the Persians, rice under the Seleucids. The recent success with seed- 
cotton has been ruined by the fall in price. 
SECTION F.—ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND 
STATISTICS. 
Thursday, September 5. 
Mr. Coin CiarK.—The world’s food supply (10.0). 
We are celebrating this year the centenary of Malthus. Nevertheless 
itis our duty to state in no uncertain terms that under present circumstances 
Malthus is wrong. The pressure of population on food supply has been 
replaced by the pressure of a glut of foodstuffs on a stationary population. 
