Palestine]
Fowls, turkeys, pigeons, and more rarely geese and ducks, are kept, especially in the vicinity of large towns, but nowhere on an extensive scale. The fowls and ducks, as usual in the East, are small and poor layers, and the industry generally, which might be highly profitable, especially as there is no tax on birds, is in a backward condition. Eggs are, however, exported to a considerable extent, chiefly by Beirut merchants, who buy them up through local agents. Prices per 100 range from 2-3 frs. in spring to 5-8 frs. in autumn. Bee-keeping is carried on in a primitive fashion by the natives, especially in the mountain valleys, where flowers are plentiful. Much better results are obtained by colonists who use European hives.
(b) Methods of Cultivation
Although large proprietorship predominates (cf. p. 88), farming on a large scale is the exception. As a rule estates are let and sublet to peasant cultivators, the normal size of individual holdings being roughly reckoned as the extent that can be tilled by means of a pair of oxen, i.e., 100-250 donum (about 23-57 acres), though smaller farms are common.
The cultivation of these modest holdings proceeds on methods which have changed little with the lapse of centuries. Crops on arable land fall into two classes, winter (wheat, barley, &c.) and summer (sesame, durra, &c.), but the same soil will not produce a double crop except where artificial irrigation is possible. Rotation of crops follows the two-field system, in which the main crop of wheat or barley is sown in alternate years only, the land, in the intermediate years, being either left fallow or put under a crop of different type, such as sesame, durra, leguminous plants or roots. Such rotation, though not providing for winter fodder, is adapted to the natural requirements of the soil, but needs to be supplemented by adequate manuring, the absence of which is the chief defect in native cultivation. Animal manure is unavailable in any large
