12 berseem: forage and soiling CROP OF NILE valley. 



IX, figs. 1 and 2.) Being an annual and grown in general on irrigated 

 land, it has not the faculty of going far in search of water, hence is 

 not suited to cultivation on dry, arid soils, even though possessing a 

 deep underlying layer of moister soil. The distinct differences between 

 berseem and lucern or alfalfa must be insisted upon if the crop is to 

 be made a success. (Compare roots of alfalfa and berseem, PI. X.) 



In Egypt, where both plants are grown — the alfalfa, however, only 

 experimentally — the distinctions are very evident. The berseem is an 

 annual and never grown more than nine months, while alfalfa is a per- 

 ennial, which gets its full growth only in the second year. Berseem 

 is planted in the autumn as late as October and cut in the late winter 

 or early spring, from December to June, while alfalfa is planted in 

 the spring (March to May), and cuttings are made in the summer and 

 winter, or from April to December. The former is a short-lived win- 

 ter-fodder plant for soils on which other crops are grown in the sum- 

 mer, while the latter is a perennial summer-fodder crop for rotations 

 extending over several years or for permanent meadows. 



Doubtless much of the continued fertility of the Nile soils may be 

 attributed to the culture of this single crop, and nothing can be more 

 striking than the dependence placed in it not only by the fellahin, but 

 by the keenest modern cultivators in Egypt. It seems to be a sort of 

 cure-all for the land, and no such thing as clover sickness from its 

 culture is known. Until the Khedivial Agricultural Society endeav- 

 ored to introduce artificial manures last year, nothing but the stable 

 manure was employed, dependence being placed in the nitrogen stored 

 in the soil by these tubercules. Mr. Wilcox, who is an authority on 

 irrigation matters in Egypt/' said he had seen land steadily improve 

 in fertility under a culture of half-year cotton and half-year berseem 

 without the addition of any manures or fertilizers whatever. In his 

 book on irrigation, p. 219, he remarks that — 



Berseem eats down salts if they are present in small quantities and enriches the 

 soil with nitrates. * * * Many think that while cotton in summer is followed 

 by clover (berseem) in winter, and cereals in winter are rigidly excluded, the rota- 

 tion of cotton and clover can be carried on unlimitedly without any appreciable 

 deterioration of the soil. 



The cotton is planted in March and harvested in October and is fol- 

 lowed by berseem, which is planted in October and plowed under in 

 March. 



Mr. Lang Anderson, manager of the Aboukir Land Company, who 

 is reclaiming in the Nile delta over 30,000 acres of alkali land, says 

 he is dependent upon berseem to bring up his soil, after the salt has 

 been washed out of it, to a state of fertility suitable for cotton grow- 

 ing. The writer visited these remarkable reclaiming basins and saw 



" W. Wilcox, author of " Egyptian Irrigation," which has already gone through a- 

 second edition. Now managing director of the Daira Sanieh Company in Cairo. 



