Apart then from oil Mesopotamia looks to agriculture chiefly to supply her economic needs. Such manufactures as she has, chiefly textiles, have given two words to most European languages, muslin from Mosul and tabby (watered silk) from a suburb of Baghdad, but these are to-day of little importance and Meso potamia's development depends, as it has always depended, on irrigation to make the crops grow. Of these two are the most important, dates and cereals, although much is hoped from cotton in the future. V. H. Dowson has computed that out of the ninety million date palms in the world a third are grown in Iraq. Of these there are fif teen million on the Shatt-al-Arab, five million on the Hilla canal, one million round Baghdad, and the remainder on the Euphrates and in separate oases. Second in importance to the date is rice which is grown in the land bordering on the river marshes over most of lower Mesopotamia, especially around Basra and to lesser extent in upper Mesopotamia. It is used both for home consumption and for export. Where the land is not suitable for rice, hard grain, especially barley and to a lesser extent wheat is grown. The Mosul district produces abundant cereals and with the development of railway communications will export a large amount. Fruit trees are cultivated throughout Mesopotamia varying from figs and pears to oranges, apricots and melons according to climate, while the apple is almost universal.
Live stock is a most important source of wealth, especially to the tribes who live on the borders of the desert. The camel be longs essentially to the nomad, but throughout the whole of Meso potamia large numbers of sheep are kept, and the goats produce hair of high grade. In the south, water buffaloes are used but in the north the chief draught animal is the ox. Arab horses are bred, although the more or less settled tribes find great difficulty in find ing fodder for their beasts in summer. The nomads solve this diffi culty by migrating. Mules are seldom bred.
Although in an agricultural country the trade returns are not altogether a satisfactory estimate of the economic geography, an analysis of recent returns is very instructive. The figures are in lakhs of rupees (about £7,500, or $36,500).
true Bedouin, and the agricultural Arab of the irrigated land, though both belong to the same physical type. In the lower valley the so-called Marsh Arabs belong to a slightly different type. The urban communities contain a number of different trading peoples, though the Arab predominates.
Although the social organization of the desert intrudes to a cer tain extent on Mesopotamia this organization is most typical of Arabia. The agricultural communities however do not differ essen tially. They form small groups under a patriarchal sheikh. Each family lives in a tent, or sometimes in a mud house. The typical form of marriage is that of first cousins, a man normally marrying his father's brother's daughter (see COUSIN MARRIAGE). Consider able attention is paid to keeping the blood pure and, apart from polygamy, the direct line is usually known for many generations.
The village sheikh exercises a patriarchal rule, and claims certain dues from his subjects. Women are usually isolated, the women's part of the tent being separated from the men's part. The tribes in the settled area are better organized than most of the desert dwellers, and although the local sheikh has complete control within his own village, the district is governed more or less after the organization of the old Ottoman empire under a matasarrif.
Most of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia are Shia Moslems, whose sacred places (Kerbela being one of the most noted) are in the Baghdad region. They are mostly fanatical Muslims, but there is not that variety of religious sects so characteristic of the Medi terranean region of the Near East.
Before the World War the Germans put very great faith in the cotton-growing possibilities of Iraq. The climatic advantages of the region lie in the fact that during the growing season there is a high and rising temperature, with none of the cold from which both Egyptian and American cotton suffer, there is no summer rain but from March to June when moisture is most needed it is available. There is no fall in temperature until after the period of growth at which time it helps to ripen the crop. The British Cotton Asso ciation is so hopeful of success in this direction that it has recently installed a modern ginnery which is capable of dealing with 10,000 bales a year.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Detailed bibliographies will be found at the end of each separate article on Mesopotamia, e.g., BABYLON, EUPHRATES, etc. The following works all contain a fairly long bibliography. General: British Foreign Office Peace handbook, Mesopotamia, 1920; L. Dela potre, Mesopotamia (1925) ; L. H. D. Buxton and D. T. Rice, Report on Excavations at Kish (Physical Anthropology) (forthcoming). Geol ogy, British Admiralty Handbook, 1918. Ancient Geography, Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. I. 1923 ; Sir A. T. Wilson, Geographical Journal 1925 LXV. Modern Geography ; S. H. Longrigg, Four Centuries of Modern Iraq (1925). In addition to the above the annual colonial office reports are invaluable for modern statistics.