'Mesopotamia' [‎46v] (92/152)

82
ECONOMIC CONDITION'S
'No. 92
nuts, almonds, raisins, walnuts, quinces, and cherries.
Proceeding southward other fruits appear—mulberries
and citrons at Baghdad and Basra—while the orange
becomes universal. Orchards line the banks of the
Euphrates continuously from Ana to Hit, and the
fruit trees in and about Baghdad are said to
number 130,000, mainly figs, pomegranates, plums, and
apricots. Below Baghdad the date palm predominates.
There is hardly less variety among the vegetables,
which include onions, radishes, beetroot, cucumber, cab
bage, carrots, tomatoes, artichokes, lettuces, potatoevS,
&c. The potato is a recent introduction.
Except in the immediate neighbourhood of large
towns, fruit and vegetables were, before the war, culti
vated only for the needs of tenants and owners, and
were treated as an entirely negligible quantity, being
neither assessed to revenue by Government nor to rent
by owners, who were usually satisfied by presents in
kind in lieu of rent. A tax was imposed by the Turkish
Government on vegetables brought to market in the
big towns, and owners in like manner demanded a share
of vegetables and fruit grown within easy reach of
markets; elsewhere fruit and vegetables as agricultural
assets were ignored. Under the British occupation
efforts have been made to stimulate vegetable produc
tion in southern Mesopotamia with very satisfactory
results.
Timber. —Chesney, describing his journey up the
Tigris, speaks of that river as flowing between high,
well-wooded banks. To-day, the only trees remaining
in Irak are date palms, tamarisks, and a few poplars,
which provide a scanty supply of fuel. Northern Meso
potamia has occasional oak-groves, especially east of
Suleimanie; the slopes of the Kurdish hills were for
merly well-wooded, but are being stripped ; and the
herds of goats kept by the Kurds do much damage to
young growth. Pistachio trees, poplars, planes, and
sycamores are found, but the staple tree is the stunted
oak, chief!v valuable for gall-nuts. Large areas of
tamarisk shrub line the middle course of the Euphrates.