of rainfall during the winter season, and a failure of the late rain in March and April makes a great difference to the wheat crop. Damage from frost or hail is rare (cf., however, p. 93, note), but locusts may be very injurious. The Italian locust has been persistent of late in the Aleppo vilayet, and Sudanese locusts have occasionally appeared in great numbers, causing serious loss, for instance, in 1915.
(a) Products of Commercial Value
Vegetable Products. Owing to its geological complexity, and the great diversity of its climate, which ranges from tropical heat in the Jordan valley to a temperature on the upper slopes of the mountains compatible with perennial snow, Syria has a rich variety of vegetable products. Cereals, vegetables, and fruit trees are produced in profusion; tobacco, cotton, and hemp are successfully cultivated; and there are some wild-growing plants of value.
Cereals. Of these the chief is wheat, to which is devoted nearly half the area under grain, the total crop in the average_year being estimated at upwards of a million tons. It is sown in December-January, and harvested between the end of May and the beginning of July. The principal wheat districts are the upland plains east of the Jordan, especially the Hauran, and the Buka'a (Coele-Syria), and, in the west, the plain of Esdraelon. Several varieties are grown, that of the Hauran being the most esteemed.
Barley is cultivated on about 30 per cent. of the cereal area, and the normal crop is some 500,000 tons, much of which is grown in the Homs-Hama district, and about Gaza and Bir es-Seba. Gaza barley ripens as early as the end of April, and is much appreciated by English brewers, but the crop is uncertain, and the amount available for export varies greatly. Barley is largely used locally for feeding animals.
Durra (Indian millet), which is sown in MarchApril, and harvested five months later, yields about
