TheImprovement ofTropical and Subtropical Rangelands

292 IMPROVEMENT OF TROPIOAL AND SUBTROPIOAL RANGELANDS
a prestige symbol, while cows are retained only in sufficiently large
quantities to ensure an adequate supply of agricultural bullocks. The
best pasture for cattle and sheep is from April on into summer, while
at other times all animals must subsist on dry fodder. Water is often
a problem, since sheep must be watered three times a day in hot
weather, and once a day in cool weather, whereas goats must have
water once a day in hot weather, and every other day during the cool
season.
Agriculture, almost exclusively dry-farming of barley and wheat,
also forms an important part of the Marri pattern. Whereas pasture
land is the collective possession of the tribe and thus open to use by
any Marri, ownership ofagricultural land is vested in individual tribal
sections. 16 Within the tribal section, land is allotted on an equal
basis to each male member, regardless of age, for use during a 10­
year period. Since efforts are made to ensure equality in land quality,
these plots are scattered widely about the Marri area. Moreover,
as population increases, there is a definite tendency to increase the
amount of land devoted to agriculture, and at the same time to
encroach on the common pasture traditionally reserved for all Marri.
This withdrawal of agricultural land diminishes pastoral reserves and
forces Marris, all of whom want to retain a mixture of agriculture
and animal husbandry in order to balance their diet, to search for
pasturage in areas outside the Marri tribal territory. Thus, a slow
but steady expansion into the Pathan areas to the north has been
taking place, abated by the superior military and social organization
of the Marri. I 7
The relative weight that a particular household unit assigns to
herding as opposed to agriculture determines the particular economy
and degree of mobility which that unit possesses. At one end of the
continuum are the sedentary populations, primarily concerned with
dry farming (although they may keep a few sheep and goats) and
attached to a small number of towns and a somewhat larger number
of semipermanent agricultural villages, whose fortunes fluctuate
both with climate and with the success or failure of local political
leaders. 18 Grouped around each town or village is a varying number of
darBhin nomads. These nomads move within a restricted area about
20 km in radius centered on the village, and are kept within the local
area by relatively small herd size, a relatively large stake in village
agriculture as wage laborers and as farmers in their own right, and
by their need for a market for their animal products and a procurement
center for trade goods. On the other end of the continuum are