"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [ظ‎‎٢‎٩‎٣] (٨٦٢/٥٨٩)

454 IRRIGATION, agriculture, and minor industry
times programmes have been abandoned or severely curtailed.
Normally two experimental farms are maintained, the Rustamiya
farm near Baghdad, and the Bakrajo farm near Sulaimaniya. Five
‘Sections’ are maintained for wheat, tobacco, plant protection, gar
dens, and industrial research. Experimental work includes the
improvement of native varieties and the introduction of new strains
of existing crops, the introduction of entirely new crops, the investiga
tion and control of pests and diseases, and the discovery of commer
cial uses for existing crops. The department’s principal achievements
have been the establishment of cotton growing, the change in methods
of tobacco cultivation, the introduction of new varieties of cereals,
and the organization of locust control. The education of the fellahin
in new methods is often slow and difficult because of their inherent
conservatism and extreme illiteracy. But the departmental farms
exercise practical influence, and use is made of instructional leaflets
where possible. Some of the department’s research into soil and
allied problems cannot be utilized at present because of the in
ability of the peasants to understand the simplest form of soil science:
thus the use of chemical fertilizers is greatly retarded.
Direct agricultural education has had little success. An agricul
tural college existed precariously between 1926 and 1931, attended
by few if any of the sons of landowners, for whom it was intended,
and only by such townsmen as hoped thereby to secure a government
post. Between 1932 and 1934 a country college existed at Hilla for
the practical training of the sons of sarkals (p. 445) and fellahin. At
present there is a training school at Abu Ghuraib for agricultural
officers and inspectors; a school for rural teachers at Rustamiya which
provides a 5 years’ course for 1,000 students is about to be divided
into two establishments, one at Baquba and the second at Mahawil
near Babylon. It is connected with the reform advocated by the
Monroe Commission on Education in 1931, which recommended the
establishment of schools of a new type in the small country towns and
larger villages. In these the education is mainly a practical course in
cultivation, stock breeding, the manufacture and repair of implements,
and the building of sheds and houses.
The Crops
Barley
This is grown as a winter crop in most wheat-producing regions;
the areas of greatest production are the Assyrian plains, which con
tribute nearly one-third of the total, and Kut and Muntafiq pro-