Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

The ordinary crops are barley and wheat. There are two varieties of bearded wheat, called “hard” and “soft,” the former being considered the best. The yield on the average is six-fold. Oats and rye are unknown, but in addition to the corn, millet, sesame, Indian corn, melons, tobacco, and cotton, are the summer crops; while lentils, beans, and chick-peas, with other vegetables, are grown in winter. Indigo grows wild, and is occasionally cultivated in the Jordan Valley. The land is never allowed to lie fallow, unless through want of labour to cultivate. A rotation of crops is observed, but manure is rarely used. To the list of productions must be added the beautiful and extensive groves of olives, especially noticeable in the low hills, with the vineyards, on the high ridges as at Hebron, where the grape is swelled by the autumn mists, and the fig-gardens, which flourish especially in the Christian district of Jufna and Bîr ez Zeit. Pomegranates, apricots, walnuts, plums, apples, mulberries, pears, quinces, oranges, lemons, and bananas, may be noticed among the fruit-trees which are found in the gardens near springs. The irrigation of the vegetable gardens by means of small ditches trodden by the foot, is another instance of the survival of a Jewish method of cultivation (Deut. xi. 10).

The first agricultural operation is that of ploughing, which is commenced in autumn at the time of the first rains, and again continued in spring for the later crops. The first period is about the end of November, the second in March and April. According to Mr. Bergheim, the first day of the autumn ploughing varies from the 17th of November to the 14th of December.

The plough is of the most primitive kind, very small, with a coulter like an arrow-head, and a single handle like that of a spade, with a cross piece, which is held by one hand, while in the other the ploughman has a stick with a nail at the end, used as a goad. To this pointed spade (as the plough may be called) is attached a long pole, which connects it with the heavy yoke of the cattle. The furrow is extremely shallow, and the instrument, indeed, only scratches the upper soil, leaving virgin earth untouched below. There are generally two ploughs which follow one another, the first perhaps harnessed to a single camel, the second to two small oxen, or to an ox with an ass (Deut. xxii. 10).

The sower follows the plough, and scatters his seed, not only into the good soil of the furrows, but partly among the thistles and artichokes which grow rank in the unturned soil, partly on the beaten path beside the field, partly among the rocks and stones which crop up in patches amid the arable ground (Matt. xiii 3—8).

The barley harvest begins in the plains in April, and continues in the hills as late as June. The stalk of the corn is very short, and the stubble is left comparatively very long. The men sit on their haunches to reap, the sickle (Seif) being not unlike our own. The handfuls thus cut are tied round with a stalk, forming little shocks (Ghamûr), and these are stacked in bundles, and then loaded in nets on camels, and carried to the threshing-floors (Beiyâdir or Jurûn) at the villages. An ancient custom—to which the peasantry can assign no origin—is observed in reaping; the corner of the field is left unreaped, and this is given to the “widows and the fatherless;” this corner is called Jerû’ah, and in the same way a bunch of wheat is left on the ground to be gleaned by the poor and helpless (Lev. xix. 9, 10). These gleanings are threshed by the women separately (Ruth ii. 15—17).

The threshing-floor is a broad flat space, on open ground, generally high; sometimes the floor is on a flat rocky hill-top, and occasionally it is in an open valley, down which there is a current of air; but it is always situated where most wind can be found, because at the threshing season high winds never occur, and the grain is safely stored before the autumn storms commence. The size of the floor varies, from a few yards to an area of perhaps fifty yards square, and rich villages have sometimes two such floors. The grain is thrown down, and trampled by cattle, or by horses attached to a heavy wooden sledge made of two boards and curved up in front. A boy stands or sits on this, and drives the horse. A number of recesses are sunk in the under side of the sledge, and into these small rough pieces of hard basalt (Hajr es Sôda) are let, which, acting like teeth, tear the corn. This instrument is called Môrej, and is supposed to be that mentioned by Isaiah (xli 15) as “having teeth.” The name is the same as the Hebrew Moreg, and the name Jurn, applied commonly to the threshing-floor, is the Hebrew Goran.

In other cases two or four oxen are yoked together and driven round the threshing-floor. I have seen them muzzled, though this is rare (Deut. xxv. 4).

The threshed grain is collected on the floor in a conical heap (Sôbeh), and is winnowed by tossing it with a wooden shovel, or with a three-pronged wooden fork. The wind scatters the chaff, and the grain falls round the heap, and it is afterwards sifted.

A tithe from the threshed grain is still set apart for the Derwîsh or village priest, as for the Levite of old (Num. xviii. 21), and is called Tazukki, or “alms.” The custom is, however, gradually dying out.

The corn is stored in underground granaries, which are carefully concealed, and form traps for the unwary horseman. These granaries (Metâmîr) are often under the protection of the Mukâm, and are therefore excavated near that building. They are circular wells, some four or five feet deep, and the mouths are closed with clay like that used for the house-roofs.