'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918' [‎191] (200/568)

AGRICULTURE AND LAND TENURE 191
and maintenance, the cultivators provide both seed and cattle, or
when seed is found for them it is as a loan to be repaid at harvest.
In some cases both parties are jointly responsible for the transport
of the ^ Government share up to a distance of three miles from the
threshing-floor.
Information as to land tenure in upper Mesopotamia is very
scanty. It appears that most of the cultivated land is held in large
estates either by wealthy townsmen or by tribal chiefs. It is stated
that round Mosul most of the land is owned by the families that in
the past formed the ruling oligarchy of the town, and that landed
property held by a member of one of these families may not be
alienated without the consent of the head of the house.
estates occur in upper Mesopotamia. It seems that in some districts
(e .g. round Kirkuk and Mosul) the lands of a village may be owned
by the cultivators.
Taxation of Agriculture
Under the Turkish regime the produce of the land has been divided
between the State, the landlord, and the cultivator. The proportions
in which this division has been made as well as the amount actually
paid have varied according to circumstances, such as the form of
tenure on which the land is held, the method of irrigation, the labour
required in cultivation, the extent to which the owner has assisted
the cultivator by providing seed, &c., the power of the administra
tion or of the owner to press their claims, and the power of the tax
payers and cultivators to evade those claims by force or bribery.
Cultivated lands are to a great extent classed for purposes of assessing
taxation or rent according to the means by which they are watered.
Daim is land dependent on rainfall alone ; hakrah or saqi is land
watered by lifts or buckets; saih is land irrigated from canals ;
chaltiq land is watered by small runnels, such as are used in rice-
fields. Vegetable lands have usually not been liable to taxation, nor
to the payment of any fixed proportion of the produce as rent, except
where vegetable gardens were specially valuable, as in the neighbour
hood of large towns.
The State's proportion of the produce consisted mainly of the
tithe, which usually amounted to about 20 per cent, of the produce of
the land, though the share claimed by the Govei-nment on this account
varied somewhat from one district to another. The proportion
claimed on rice was sometimes higher than that on other grain crops,
and land watered by lifts paid at a higher rate than that irrigated
by canals. Payment was made in money or in kind at the option of