"كُتيّب اليمن" [ظ‎‎٢‎٢] (١٩٠/٤٩)

v.— AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRIES.
The inhabitants of Yemen are in the main settled and
in great part occupied in cultivation, and the climatic con
ditions which favour the pastoral or Bedouin type do not
exist generally, except in parts of the littoral plain and
on the eastern plateau. Yemen has ever been noted for
its agriculture and general fertility; but this fame is
due chiefly to the Highlands not to the Tihamah, which
is mostly dusty steppe, except where great wddis cut their
way through to the sea.
The principal crops of the region as a whole are coffee,
maize, red and white millet, bearded wheat and barley,
sesame, indigo, and cotton. The distribution of crops,,
according to zone, is much as follows :—
The Tihamah is, in the main, sterile and saline ; but
gardens may be maintained near some of the larger sea ports
by constant irrigation, while further inland towards the
foothills there are broad arable tracts formed of detritus
brought down from the heights. The crops of this belt
are red and white millet, maize, sesame, cotton, and indigo
(around Beit el-Faqih and Zebid), but neither of the two
last in any great quantity. These crops, as a whole, depend
on the spring rains and will ripen three months after sowing..
On the inner edge of the Tihamah, where they get the
margin of the summer storms, as many as three crops of
millet can be obtained from one sowing.
Along the hills of the Maritime Range little cultivation
is possible (except in those valleys of considerable size
wh^te flood-water comes down and can be utilized). The
country is well bushed, but there is little soil to cultivate,
the surface drainage water is not enough for irrigation
purposes, and the population is scanty. The crops, such
as they are, are grown in the spring, as the rain falls in