'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎293r] (588/862)

IRRIGATION, AGRICULTURE, AND MINOR INDUSTRY 453
March and April, when showers are required about every ten days to
fill the grain. After the first winter rains, lands left unploughed the
last winter are ploughed hastily and sown; but such tarakal crops
cannot equal the rabas or ward crops from well-prepared lands.
Land Settlement and Size of Holdings
The shortage of agricultural labour is a very good reason for the
delay in carrying out some of the more grandiose schemes of irriga
tion. With the completion of the Abu Ghuraib canal and of the
schemes dependent upon the Kut barrage, probably as much water
has been made available as the existing population can use. Any
extension of the cultivated area depends upon the conversion of
shepherd tribesmen into cultivators, and there may be limits to both
the efficacy and the desirability of this. Information about the size
of holdings is scanty. The economic limit fixed for small holdings
of Luzma land under the law of Luzma is 20 dunams or 12-8 acres for
ploughland and 5 dunams or 3-2 acres for land planted with trees.
But these are minima. On a branch of the Saqlawiya canal land
was divided between fellahin Arabic for ‘peasant’. It was used by British officials to refer to agricultural workers or to members of a social class employed primarily in agricultural labour. at an average of 14-15 acres each. On
Latifiya estate each family has 20 acres of winter crop. Holdings in
the Shatt al Arab palm-groves, great and small together, average
18 acres. The only statistical information available (Table V, p. 477)
concerns the size not of cultivator’s holdings but of landed properties,
for which the average, as far as the evidence goes, is about 245 acres.
The maximum necessary expense for the settlement of new cultiva
tors on new land is shown by the method employed for the settlement
of Assyrians in northern Iraq. The cost per family in 1926-1927 was
as follows:
Rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf.
Two oxen ...... 90
One plough ...... 15
590 lb. of seed barley .... 10
The same of seed wheat .... 25
Hire of mules for 2 days .... 8
Total ...... 148
The Assyrians were supposed to be destitute; generally new culti
vators in Iraq are tribesmen with sheep and cattle of their own.
Research and Education
The field work of the Department of Agriculture has suffered
greatly from both the inadequacy and the irregularity of its income,
so that the planning of long-term schemes has been difficult, and at