B. P. [.-28. S - ''• ! --'- 



BERSEEM: THE GREAT FORAGE AND SOILING CROP OF 



THE NILE VALLEY. 



INTRODUCTION. 



There are few countries in the world to-day where agriculture pays 

 better than it does in Egypt. The methods of plowing and seeding 

 have scarcely changed at all since the days of the ancient Egyptians, 

 and yet without a single manufacturing industry worthy the name the 

 valley of the Nile is entering upon an era of growth and prosperity 

 which seems most remarkable even to an inhabitant of the Western 



Hemisphere. 



While her great money-making crop is cotton, in the production 

 and shipment of which she has much to teach her competitors, the 

 foundation of her continued prosperity rests upon a leguminous fod- 

 der and soiling crop, about which the outside world has concerned 



itself very little. 



Berseem, Alexandrian clover, or Egyptian clover (PL I), as it is 

 variously called, is a species of Trifolium more or less closely related 

 to the ordinary red clover. Its name, Trifolium (dexandrinum L., 

 probably has nothing to do with its origin; in fact there is good reason 

 to believe that the plant came from some other part of the Mediter- 

 ranean than that about Alexandria, and was introduced into Egypt in 

 comparatively recent times. The total absence on the monuments of 

 any bas relief which can be identified as this plant is remarkable if the 

 species occupied in those days the important place it does now in the 

 agriculture of the peasants or fellahin. There are few single species 

 of plants which play in any country a more important role in its agri- 

 culture than is played by this Trifolium. It is the first crop planted 

 after reclaiming the salt lands (PL II, figs. 1, 2, 3); it furnishes the 

 green fodder for all work animals in the big towns (PL V, fig 1); on 

 it graze all the beef and milch cattle (PL III, figs. 1, 2, 3); the camels 

 are fed upon it (PL VI, fig. 2); the well-kept donkeys get their por- 

 tion of it, and even the poor fellah carries a bunch of it in his hand 

 and seems to enjoy its sharp clover taste. Nothing among the most 

 varied agricultural sights which interest the tourist in Egypt in winter 

 can be more conspicuous than the culture, harvest, and marketing of 

 this essentiallv green-fodder crop. Every coachman has a bunch of 



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