British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 343

CHAPTER IX.

72. In the first place, one of the most significant stimuli to increased care of the land and its development to greater productivity is security of title. The land registration system (section 3 of chapter VIII) and the operations for settlement of title (section 2 of chapter Vll) have progressively eliminated many of the uncertainties which held up permanent improvement of the land in the past and the latter operations have also encouraged the consolidation of uneconomic units into more satisfactory agricultural units.

73. The policy of Government in regard to forestry and soil conservation (chapter XI) covers both preventive and constructive activities. On the one hand, measures are taken to put an end to the "ravages of soil erosion and the encroachment of sand dunes, as described in the chapter to which reference has just been made. On the other hand, both by direct action and by example and instruction, the Departments of Forests and Agriculture and the Soil Conservation Board in their respective spheres seek to bring large areas under cover of vegetation, to introduce scientific systems of soil conservation both in the hill areas and on the plains and to improve methods of animal husbandry to increase both the agricultural qualities of land and also the yield of stock.

74. As has been mentioned in section 2 of this chapter, livestock in Palestine is vulnerable to a wide variety of animal diseases. The primary duty of the Government's veterinary service is in com batting these diseases and keeping them under control: they also initiate any further measures for reducing the susceptibility of stock and generally improving its quality. There is a stockbreeding section of the Department of Agriculture centred on the Government farm at Acre (to be further mentioned later) from which much useful field-work in connection with the up-grading of stock has been conducted. Another section of the Department of Agriculture is concerned with the development of the poultry and bee-keeping industries. A special breeding scheme has been initiated by the Department to improve the breeding stock on Jewish farms. Until recently (when the scheme had to be closed down because of disease) local chicks were hatched at Government hatcheries for sale to Arab villages. Nearly a quarter of a million were distributed in 1944.

75. Plant diseases and pests are also rile. Extensive powers to deal with them are conferred on Government by the Plant. Protection Ordinance, 1924*, which is administered by the Department of Agriculture. While to a considerable extent the tasks of combatting these diseases and of spreading improved
______________________
* Drayton, vol. II, page 1141.

Page 343