Download or read book Foreign Agriculture Vol 8 written by Office Of Foreign Agricultura Relations and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2018-03-28 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Foreign Agriculture, Vol. 8: A Review of Foreign Farm Policy, Production, and Trade; April 1944 Che of the principal factors causing agricultural inefficiency in Greece is the 'lack of knowledge of improved agriculture. Another is the absence of farm implements and machinery and the lack Of capital necessary to purchase this equipment. The wooden plow, dating back to antiquity; the brush harrow; the hand sickle for harvest ing grain; the threshing floor of hard earth on which grain is threshed by driving animals over it, sometimes aided by a wooden sled with sharp flints fastened to the bottom, are the rule. The livestock are small and poorly fed. Grain is broadcast by hand. Commercial fertilizers and spraying materials are used only in the well organized tobacco currant and raisin-producing regions. Crop rotations do not exist in most cases, unless leaving an average of 30 percent of all the fertile land in Greece as fallow can be called a primitive method of crop rotation and soil main tenance. Frequently peasants do not conform to their climatic environment and attempt to produce crops not suited to the rainfall and temperatures prevailing in their commun ity. Moreover, the lack Of implements and draft power for proper tillage of the soil prevents the preservation of the major part Of the moisture that is available. In some cases farmers do a relatively good job of producing a commodity but fail to grade, package, and market the product properly (5, p. For example, currants and raisins exported from Greece have been frequently harvested in a primitive, un sanitary manner and poorly packed in an unsorted state.' Protests and discriminations by the foreign buyers and their local agents have resulted in the elimination of such harmful practices as drying currants on the bare ground and the introduction of better handling methods. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.