Silk Production and Trade in Iran in the Nineteenth Century

It is difficult to give more than a rough sketch of Iranian agriculture in the nineteenth century or to indicate any but the most general developments that took place in it. On the one hand, the government made very few studies of rural conditions and kept practically no statistics on land acreage or output; on the other, most foreign observers had little interest in the condition of the peasantry or agriculture as a whole. Nonetheless, because of the importance of silk in Iranian foreign trade foreign observers, especially British consuls in Rasht, took a special interest in various aspects of its culture and trade. This paper sets itself the objective of studying production and trade in raw silk in Iran during the nineteenth century.