A short survey of the productions of the three Khanats will help to explain and confirm in detail all I have hitherto stated.
1. The Vegetable Kingdom.
Wheat and barley are the most important among the cereals grown in the oasis countries of Turkestan. There are four kinds of wheat:—
1. Bukhara budayi (Bokhara wheat) is considered the finest; it has a long, thin, and reddish grain, with a greenish top. Of this sort the delicious bread is baked, in the preparation of which the town of Bokhara excels, and which is famed far and wide under the name of shirmaye (milk-marrow).
2. Tokmak bash (cuneiform top) has a round, thick grain; it is very substantial, and most like our wheat. The best quality is found in Khiva.
3. Kara süllü (black-haired) has a thin and dark-brown grain; it is chiefly used as food for horses, not being of a particularly good quality.
4. Yazlik (summer-fruit) takes a very short time to grow; it is exceedingly light, and, when used, is mixed with other kinds of wheat.
Barley is not so good in Central Asia as in Persia or Turkey. There is, besides the usual sort, an inferior one, called karakalpak in Khiva, which is here used, as everywhere in the East, as food for horses. The average prices of all cereals are exceedingly low, as compared with the countries of western Asia. The price of a Khiva batman of the best wheat varies from two to three tenge (one tenge, seventy-five cent.), whilst barley costs often less than one tenge, and seldom more.
Rice is grown in enormous quantities, but it is far inferior to the Herat or the excellent Shiraz rice, called tchampa and amberbuy (amber perfume) in quality. It is more like the Egyptian, called in Turkey dimyati (damietter), but would no doubt surpass the latter, if cultivated with more care and attention.
Djügeri (holcus sorghum) is grown and consumed in far larger quantities in the three Khanats than anywhere else in Asia. It is eaten in a milky state, but when dry it is used as fodder, principally for young colts, being less heating, and also more nourishing, than barley, from the quantity of saccharine matter it contains. Bread is made of it, either alone or mixed with wheat.