'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎305r] (612/862)

IRRIGATION, AGRICULTURE, AND MINOR INDUSTRY 471
Poultry are ubiquitous and include pigeons, turkeys, ducks, and
geese, in addition to fowls. The latter provide an export, both of
eggs and birds, to Palestine and Syria, which despite violent fluctua
tions between 1936 and 1939, seems to have a promising future.
Poultry food is available at cheap rates in Iraq, but methods are
primitive and disease is prevalent. Iraqi poultry, however, have a good
name by Middle Eastern standards. No general production figures
are available, except for the export of eggs, which in the best period
(1936) reached 19 millions and in 1940 stood at about 4 millions.
It is also known that half a million table birds were exported in 1935.
Fresh-water fish, like poultry, are exported to Palestine, in re
frigerated vans, particularly for the Jewish market. This trade
increased from 500 tons in 1935 to over 1,000 in 1940. The fish of
the Euphrates and Tigris are described on p. 204. Little information
is available about fishing methods or the numbers of persons em
ployed, but netting is extensively practised from boats (photo. 182),
and from the size of the receipts of tax levied on fish it seems that a
great quantity is taken yearly for market, in addition to that consumed
by marsh tribesmen at home. The tax value of the yearly catch varies
between £10,000 and £20,000.
Diseases and Veterinary Department
In Iraq cattle diseases spread quickly and often cause high mor
tality. Losses may amount to £240,000 in a single year. Thus
the main work of the Veterinary Department has been concerned
with disease control through its principal hospitals, dispensaries, and .
itinerant surgeons, though it also makes experiments with new
breeds and crosses foreign stock with native, using for these
purposes the farms of the Department of Agriculture.
The department has generally been understaffed and recruits have
been few, because the value of veterinary work was little understood
in Iraq as in other Middle Eastern countries. Its powers were some
what limited until 1936, when a ‘Law on malignant animal diseases’,
supplementing earlier legislation, compelled the administrative
authorities to co-operate with the veterinary surgeons. Cattle farmers
and shepherds have, however, been fairly quick to appreciate the
benefits of inoculation and washes demonstrated by the department.
In 1934 the department’s laboratory was enlarged and production
of sera and lymphs hitherto imported was undertaken.
Of some thirty-six diseases listed by official sources only a few
cause serious losses. Rinder-pest or cattle plague used to be among