Perhaps the most successful vegetable that has been introduced into
England is the tomato. Forty or fifty years ago a punnet or two of the
attractive vivid scarlet fruit might be seen in season at Covent Garden
Market. They were known as "love-apples," and probably were bought and
consumed; but their growth into favour was very slow before becoming a
fashion, and, with most people, an acquired taste. The tomato forms a
summer production of the English market gardener, who is rivalled by the
growers of the Channel Islands; and it is sent into market daily by the
ton; while, when the inclemency of our climate renders firing absolutely
necessary, the enterprising growers of the Canaries keep up the supply.
Flourishing so well just off the west coast of Africa, it is only
natural that the tomato should find a congenial home in the fertile East
of the great Continent, and it is extensively grown with increasing
success in Egypt.
As an example of the tomato being treated as a profitable crop, here is
an instance of what has been done in the way of market gardening in the
district of Alexandria, and may be done again by those persevering
cultivators who are struggling to make a moderate living.
A father and two grown-up sons may rent a plot of land of, say, four
acres in extent, the rent of which perhaps reaches ten pounds per annum,
the gardener having to raise water for irrigation purposes.
The occupation of the land would commence on the first of August. The
soil may be classed as pure sand, which naturally requires a liberal
application of farmyard manure. The ordinary tillage having been
carried out, the cultivator begins by transplanting seedling tomatoes
about the beginning of September. Not being prepared to plant the whole
of his four acres with tomatoes, he sows on another part vegetable
marrows, which in this hot climate are ready for plucking in six weeks,
the plants continuing to bear for a month; while directly this supply is
finished another crop of marrows may be sown on the same land.
Meanwhile, the tomatoes are pushing forward to be ready by the first of
January at a time when the price is generally good, though probably in
no other vegetable is there so great a variance in the amount it will
fetch, dependent, of course, on the scarcity or plentifulness of the
crop.
It will be news, probably, for the British grower when he reads that the
wholesale price of tomatoes in Egypt varies from one farthing to
fivepence per pound. Perhaps he may open his eyes a little wider when
he reads that a fair estimate of the gross return from growing tomatoes
for the market supply of Alexandria will vary from ten pounds to fifty
pounds or more per acre; and, of course, this is in the open ground,
forming an almost immediate return, and with no preliminary outlay for
glass houses.
But there are always drawbacks in gardening; and one of these, which may
occasionally mar success, is caused on this land so near the sea by the
fogs. These, if they attack this delicate plant, so famous here at home
for developing aphides and fungoid diseases, like their unfortunate
relatives the potatoes, destroy the leaves, blacken them, hinder the
setting of the blossom, and generally reduce the crop.
Several men have been known to engage in this cultivation in the
neighbourhood of Alexandria during the last five years, and apparently
they have financially improved their position.
Leaving the aristocratic tomato and turning to its poor relative the
potato, it might have been hoped that in such a hot, sandy land as
Egypt, where thousands of acres offer the same facilities, and are made
as rich and fertile as the famous warp-land potato tracts of north
Lincolnshire and south Yorkshire, a home would have been found where it
would flourish free from disease.
Unfortunately, the information to be given to the horticultural or
agricultural grower upon this point is not good; in fact, quite
sufficient to make the writer suggest that it should be a crop to be
left alone.
Certainly potato growing is tempting; the cultivation is simple, the
crops heavy and very profitable _if_--this is a very large "if," and
means so much, especially connected with weather and disease.
Experience of long years employed in gardening and farming in Egypt
suggests that if the cultivation of the potato is entered upon it is
best to be grown on the farm or by large market gardeners.
Good quality potatoes, such as are marketed in England, are rarely found
in Egypt. The crop is generally grown from "seed" imported from France
and Italy, and a sandy soil is chosen. Two crops, however, can be taken
from the land per annum. The first is planted in October, and should be
ready for lifting in the beginning of February, a period of five months;
the second, planted in February, is ready for harvesting in June--the
duration of time for the crop to be on the land, one hundred and ten
days. It sounds novel to a British grower to speak of a winter and a
summer crop of potatoes, two crops in the year; but this is so, and the
winter may yield three tons per acre, while the summer produces five to
six; while the current price per ton returned to the grower is about
seven pounds. As this is the most popular of vegetables, and the demand
always so great for good, well-grown new potatoes, experiments have been
tried for raising these in the neighbourhood of Cairo and sending them
packed in boxes to arrive in England, when they would be eagerly bought
up in the market as luxuries, at the beginning of March.
Here are the returns of the experiment. From fifteen to eighteen pounds
per ton were realised; carriage, freight, and other expenses amounted to
three pounds per ton, leaving a margin of profit over the price in Egypt
of from five pounds to eight pounds sterling. Enough this to make the
Delta worthy the name of a land of promise, and especially more so when
it can be, and is, announced that it is a country where there is no
potato disease. In exceptional cases, however, there is the drawback of
cold weather, which retards the growth of the winter crop.
Another objection is that all the seed potatoes--and these are heavy of
freight--have to be imported, as storing throughout the summer is
impracticable.
It is only fair to say, however, on behalf of our good old mealy friend,
the familiar object of every man's table, that in his guise of a
foreigner--an African--he will be much better if he is let alone and not
subjected to the tricks of trade, which recoil upon and tend to spoil
his character. For in the harvesting of the crop a bad practice has
arisen with the Egyptian market gardener, who generally carries on his
operations in the neighbourhood of some irrigation canal connected with
the Nile, where he has, so to speak, abundance of conserved water always
on tap ready to give his fields a heavy watering. This he bestows upon
his potatoes just before turning them out of the ground, as he finds
that it greatly increases the weight of the tubers; but it spoils their
quality, and makes them what a Londoner calls "waxy," and a north
countryman "sad."
One ought not to close one's list of garden or farm productions without
adding the names of a few so-called spices, or flavour-producing plants,
which are always in steady demand and flourish well in the valley of the
Nile. Among these are the capsicum, the green and the red, which are
most easy of culture, and come to maturity rapidly with the same
treatment as is accorded to the tomato. There is also the lesser kind,
or chilli; the caraway famous for its seeds, the coriander, and dill;
while as to the familiar mustard, it hardly asks for cultivation at all,
but grows rapidly and ripens well, while the seed, when ground into the
familiar condiment, is pungent and aromatic in the extreme.
As is well-known, a fine class of tobacco is grown pretty largely in the
Delta. It is wanting in the strength of the kinds raised in the West
Indies and the United States. It is excelled, too, in potency by the
products of the East Indies; but it is of a very delicate flavour and
much liked, though not so popular as that of Turkey in Europe and Asia.
But this is partially due to want of usage on the part of smokers, who
are not accustomed to the pungency and fine aroma which appertain to the
Egyptian tobacco as compared with the Turkish. But the North African is
remarkably good all the same, and flourishes splendidly, there always
being abundance of sunshine at the picking time and excellent
opportunity for _haying_ the crop. For, after all said and done, a
great deal of the aroma of tobacco depends upon the fermenting process
it goes through in being dried and pressed, just as a well-made crop of
grass, hay, or clover, is dependent upon the skill of the farmer and his
choice of weather.