22 COTTON IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN. 



founded in 1896 at Cairo, with a capital of ^80,000 ordinary shares 

 and ;40,000 debentures. This company lifts the water of the Nile at 

 Naghamdi by means of two pumps, made by Sulzer, from a level of 

 8^ metres, and supplies the water for sugar cane cultivation against 

 a payment of ^3, provided the cane is supplied to the allied com- 

 pany, the Societe Generate des Sucreries et de la Raffinerie d'Egypte, 

 otherwise the charge is ;E'3J. The company pays 8 per cent, 

 dividend, and its ^20 shares are quoted at 30. 



On a much broader and more important basis is the enterprise 

 of Sir Ernest Cassel in London, who in combination with Cairo 

 financiers, such as Suares and Pelizaus, founded in 1904 a company 

 owning a considerable area of land; it has a capital of ^1,000,000 

 sterling ; this company is called Societe Anonyme du Ouadi de Kom 

 Ombo. Thirty thousand feddans of desert land were bought at 20 

 piastres at Kom Ombo, in Upper Egypt, which, although at a some- 

 what high altitude from the Nile, had the advantage of being easily 

 levelled. The company has the right of purchasing further 90,000 

 feddans of land ; at present 22,000 feddans are under most flourishing 

 cultivation by means of artificial irrigation. An installation by Sulzer, 

 said to be the largest pumping station in the world, lifts with three 

 powerful suction pipes of a diameter of 2 metres the water from the 

 Nile, supplying at times of high flood and with a 15 metres lift, 12 

 cubic metres; at low Nile it will lift from a 24 feet level 9 cubic 

 metres per second. A network of canals takes the water over the 

 whole land. One thousand cubic metres of water cost 18 to 20 

 piastres, each watering per feddan requires 500 cubic metres, and 

 costs, therefore, 9 to 10 piastres. Wheat and barley require 10, 

 cotton 20, and sugar cane 30 waterings, the conditions of the wind 

 and the soil at Kom-Ombo being less favourable than at Luxor, where 

 sugar cane only requires 18 to 20 waterings. In the former desert 

 of Kom-Ombo are now 30 villages, containing about 14,000 inhabi- 

 tants, mostly from Central Egypt, of whom 5,000 are men. The 

 villages are situated amongst most luxurious vegetation of barley, 

 wheat, and durra, and sugar cane. Originally the management 

 intended to grow principally cotton, but it was found necessary to 

 limit cotton to experimental farms, owing to the soil being very salty 

 in places, and owing to its composition and little retentive power. 

 The results obtained were not satisfactory, which may partly be 

 attributed to the lack of expert management. This modern agri- 

 cultural company has so far not been able to pay any dividend in 

 consequence of its enormous capital outlay, but since 1911, after the 

 Societe des Sucreries had in 1910 erected at Kom-Ombo a large sugar 

 refinery, which handles the cane grown on the land, the company 

 has been able to pay its expenses. What the commercial result of 

 this enormous undertaking will be cannot yet be anticipated with 

 certainty, but in any case this new method of cultivat- 

 ing desert land might justly become the example for the whole of 

 Upper Egypt and the Sudan, and open up unexpected prospects. 



Finally, we must consider under the heading of irrigation 

 another kind of plant. In those places where Government canals 

 and water-lifting appliances, which take the water from the canals or 

 direct from the Nile, are not sufficient, we find latterly more and 

 more tube-wells, driven by pumps. The old Egyptians already knew 



