inheritance, changes in share-cropping arrangements, and land disputes, a man
rarely sows the same area two alternate years running.
According to informants' statements, I calculated normal yields in Sakaltutan at
about fifteen bushels to the acre. 1949 - a year of national disaster - 1950 and
I951 were all years of poor yield, so I may have underestimated. In Elbashï,
equally rough calculations gave a figure nearer twenty bushels, but the difference
may be illusory.
Taking the lower figure, a man with about ten acres (forty decares to work each year, twenty acres in all) would get about 150 bushels in a normal year. Of this, he would need to keep about fifty bushels to feed his household, and about twenty-five bushels for seed and a further twenty-five for animals, village dues and so forth. The balance of about fifty bushels would be sold, and in the years 1949-52, would have realised about T.L.300.
In Table 6, I give estimates, made during threshing, before the final count, of expected total yields of four households. The yields per acre were lower than usual, and the discrepancies in the rate are due partly to variations in optimism, partly to the general vagueness of informants about areas and quantities, and perhaps to actual difference in yields of different farmers and different pieces of land.
Table 6
EXPECTED CEREAL HARVESTS: SAKALTUTAN I950
House-
holdTotal land holding
claimed, village dönüm*Bushels Yield
Bushels
per AcreSurplus
for
saleCash
T.L.I 150 (largest in Sakaltutan) 500 13.3 250 1500 z 60 150 10 60 375 3 75 (15 share cropped) 138 8 60 375 4 30 88 12 12 75
*Only half is worked each year
Actual yields were even lower than this. I found the last household weeping together because the yield was only fifty bushels,