File:Dry-land olive culture in northern Africa (1908) (14763454042).jpg

Identifier: drylandolivecult00kear (find matches)
Title: Dry-land olive culture in northern Africa
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Kearney, Thomas H. (Thomas Henry), 1874-1956
Subjects: Olive Agriculture Dry farming
Publisher: Washington, Gov't print. off.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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sia there are varieties of our common orchard treesthat would probably give better results under dry farming conditionsthan the varieties ordinarily grown in the humid parts of the UnitedStates or under irrigation in the West. An account of dry-landolive culture in Tunis should therefore be useful even outside theolive zone, as it will direct attention to the type of tree and themethods of culture that are likely to give the best results. IMPORTANCE OF DRY-LAND ARBORICULTURE IN ANCIENT AFRICA. Southern Tunis is to-day an arid, treeless waste, almost a desert,covered with a sparse growth of thorny bushes and coarse bunch-grasses. There are no streams of considerable size to furnish waterfor irrigation, and the average yearly rainfall is small, ranging from8 to 14 inches. In many places a fair crop of wheat or barley canbe expected only once in three or four years. This region is nowuninhabited, save by a few thousand Bedouins, who wander from DRY-LAND ARBORICULTURE IN ANCIENT AFRICA. 9
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place to place in search of pasturage for their sheep and goats. Ex-cept on the coast and at a few points near the mountains along thenorthern and western borders of the district there are no large townsand hardly any permanent villages. The desolation is almost every-where complete. Yet during the third to the seventh century of the Christian erathis whole dis-trict (fig. 1),fromthe seacoast west-ward into whatis now easternAlgeria, wasthickly d o 11 e dw i t h thrivingvillages andfarms. In anarea not exceed-ing 20,000 squaremiles — 15,000within the bound-aries of modernTunis and per-il a p s 5,000 i nAlgeria—t herewere at least adozen cities of10,000 to 30,000inhabitants. Anetwork of splen-did paved roads,such as the Ro-mans k n e w s owell ho ay t o Fig. i. Map of Tunis/ showing the probable extent of thedry-land arboricultural region in ancient times and the areanow occupied by dry-land olive orchards. (After Bourde.) build, connectedthese cities with each other and with those

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