It will be interesting to add a few remarks on a system of cultivation
which is practised on tracts adjoining the Desert. The land has been
purchased at a price of, say, 17 pounds per acre, and the next
proceeding has been to level it--by the free use of the Cassabia, or
scraper, which, in roughest preparation, is drawn over and over the sand
and guided something after the fashion of a plough--and then bringing it
into communication by canalising with the nearest distributor of the
Nile water, while in this country of exceedingly cheap labour the cost
of these preparations for cultivation may be set down at about 10 pounds
per acre.
This done, the purchaser has the option of carrying on the cultivation
himself, or letting it to the fellaheen, who will take it readily and
pay a rent of 4 pounds per acre or feddan.
The fellah now crops his land as follows, and the reader will notice the
variation in the products the native causes his fields to bring forth.
He begins with:
*Earth Nuts (_Arachidis_)*.--Sown from April 1st till July 1st.
Duration of crops, six months. Water every five days till high Nile,
when no water is required. Yield per acre, sixty bushels, value 10
pounds.
*Sesame*.--Yield, fifteen bushels; value, 7 pounds.
*Chick Peas*.--Sown from April 1st to July 1st. Duration of crop, six
months. Yield per acre, thirty bushels; value, 6 pounds.
*Maize (Oswego)*.--Sown March 15th till April 15th. Duration of crop,
seven months; value of crop, 9 pounds.
*Potatoes*.--First crop planted October. Duration, three and a half
months. Yield, three and a half tons; 17 pounds 10 shillings.
*Potatoes*.--Second crop planted February 15th. Duration, three months.
Yield, three and a half tons; 17 pounds 10 shillings.
*Lupins*.--Sown November 1st. Duration of crop, seven months. Average
yield, fifteen bushels; 2 pounds 8 shillings.
Clover, barley, beans, Syrian maize, and henna, a dye plant.
To begin with, the land is here generally pure sand, but after flooding
with Nile water, which is often available without pumping--_i.e._ free
flow--the sand gets mixed with the Nile mud and a good soil is rapidly
formed.
*Sugar-Cane*.--This, one of the most interesting products of the Eastern
soil, beautiful in form, and attractive in every stage, from its early
green growth through the tasselling, or flowering, up to the time when
the swelling cobs are changing from their attractive green to golden
yellow, amber, and brownish or purple black, is cultivated both in Upper
and Lower Egypt. It is grown in two varieties, the native and the
Greek, and the colour of the ripened canes forms a gradation, passing
from light yellow through striped red and yellow, and red.
The cultivation is, as stated, principally carried on in Upper Egypt--
for the manufacture of sugar. If it is planted in the Delta it is for
sale to the natives, by whom it is consumed raw, and by sucking the
juice. The farmer who plants his land with sugar-cane begins by
thoroughly well preparing the soil, and ridges it as if he were about to
plant potatoes, these ridges measuring about thirty inches from crest to
crest.
The canes are cut into lengths of one yard, placed in the furrow, and
covered with the soil. Planting commences in February, the ridges being
watered immediately after, and the young shoots appear after twenty
days. The crop is watered every fifteen days, and at longer intervals
after the Nile has risen. The land is hand-hoed three times, and the
cane should be ready for cutting in December and January. The value of
an average crop sold standing--in Lower Egypt--may range from 20 to 25
pounds per acre. Then the trashings covering the ridges are burned, a
watering given about the beginning of March, and the old roots sprout
again, when there is a second crop, and again the following year by
repeating, a third crop from the one planting. The third crop is not so
profitable, as the roots become exhausted. The sugar-cane requires a
liberal dressing of manure each year. The yield of trashed canes may
run from six tons the first year, five tons the second year, and four
tons the third year, and the percentage of sugar may be estimated from
fourteen to fifteen per cent.