Palestine]
day, and often less (cf. p. 113), while the scale for female and child labour is considerably lower. In the factories little attention has hitherto been paid to bygiene; in particular the unhealthy conditions prevailing in some of the Lebanese silk-spinning establishments, where young girls work for long hours in steamy and ill-ventilated rooms, have been the subject of criticism. Attempts at improvement have lately been made in some instances.
(2) Agriculture
Syria is essentially an agricultural country. Its wealth is derived almost wholly from the cultivation of the soil, and the bulk of the population is engaged in raising produce of various kinds or in keeping and breeding domestic animals. The extent of the cultivated area is not accurately known. Official figures for the year 1915 give to cultivation in the vilayet of Damascus, exclusive of natural pastures and forests, 15,710,481 donum (14,438 sq. km.),[1] and in the Lebanon 435,200 donum (400 sq. km.), i.e., about 16 per cent. and 12 per cent. respectively of the total areas. In the vilayet of Aleppo and the mutessariflik of Jerusalem the proportion is probably somewhat smaller, in the vilayet of Beirut somewhat higher, and the total area normally under crops may be put roughly at from 20,000 to 24,000 sq. km., or from 10 per cent. to 12 per cent. of the whole. This is no doubt capable of appreciable extension, even if the ancient limits cannot be reached. The theory of a considerable alteration of climate in the historical period is, indeed, now commonly discredited, but, on the other hand, the facts are not easily explained without supposing some decrease of moisture in these regions. Drought is the chief danger to the harvest. Much depends on equable distribution
- ↑ Reckoning the donum as 919 sq. metres, or 1,088 to 1 sq. km. The exact value of the donum in Syria is said to be 919:3024 sq. metres, or about 227 acres.
