Page 48 - Arabian Studies (I)

34 Arabian Studies /

Regarding the planting together of two crops, 1 observed on June
15, south of San‘a\ but later in many other places, fields in which
at the time of sowing (badhr) of SaifT millet, shallow trenches or
furrows (mandab, pi., manddib) a little raised above the field level
had been made across the furrows in which the main crop of millet
had been planted (Fig. 1). These manddib were intended to catch the
water from a channel leading from the hill slope behind the field.
They had french beans (Jdsuliyd) sown in them for use as animal
fodder Calaf), but the whole Field benefits from the run-off conveyed
along these cross-furrows.

Fig. 1. Field with irrigation
channels cutting across
ploughed furrows.

Hamdam on Cereal Cultivation

‘One of the marvels of the Yemen’, Hamdam39 continues, ‘is that
most of its cereals [zurii'i are grown on rain-land [a'qar] - therefore
dough made from them has a firm consistency and bread40 made
from them is soft. This is because a field [jirbah] drinks at the end of
Tammuz [14 July—13 August] and beginning of Ab [14 August]. It
is then ploughed in Ailul [14 September—13 October] when it
‘fammat\A 1 ie. has drunk/absorbed its water and its surface has
dried. Then it is ploughed once, then again in TishrTn I [ 14 October],
then a third time in TishrTn II [14 November]. Then it is sown in
Kanun I [14 December] and the crop stands till Aiyar [14 May]
when it is harvested no water having reached it. At al-Qararah and
al-Hujairah it is cut promptly in NIsan [14 April] and the close of
Adhar [13 April]. The field will still retain much of its wetness
[jamm], so it is ploughed and resown, producing grain [ta'am],
before full time because of the heat of the season, which is cut in
HazTran.’
‘As for MaYib, the Jawf and Baihan, the widn [i.e. the field