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0291 The Pulse of Asia : vol.1
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 / Page 291 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000233
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erally emphasized sufficiently "the special characteristics
due to the unvarying fertility, the enervating facility, and the
great vulnerability of irrigation systems. Societies," he goes
on to say, "have been divided into nomadic, agricultural,
manufacturing, and commercial types. The distinction
that has not been made and studied in its very important
results is that which makes a separate class of the irrigat-
ing agriculturist, — safe against climatic risks; crowded in
small holdings; dependent on combined action for the con-
struction of irrigation works; the ready victim of any vio-
lence which seizes some certain ditch. Contrast him with
his brother who lives by the grace of uncertain rains; forced
to a prevision which makes the lean year borrow from the
fat; able to live wide apart from his neighbor, developing
thereby an independent individualism which may ripen into
civil order and liberty; each farmer whose land has its own
water supply capable of making some military resistance."

In view of the famines of the irrigated lands of India and
Persia, and in view of other facts to be presented later, I
question whether the irrigating agriculturist is "safe against
climatic risks." The highly organized, peaceful condition
of many communities where irrigation is practiced raises a
presumption that universal dependence on a few canals
which are virtually public property may be as effective as
"independent individualism" in leading to "civil order."
Nevertheless, Crosby's idea that the inhabitants of irrigated
oases are subjected to peculiar conditions which give rise
to a distinct type of social organization is an important con-
tribution to geography.

Younghusband, less consciously, expresses the same idea