26 COTTON IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN. 



the north, in districts which, without a corresponding drainage system, 

 could only have supplied unsatisfactory crops. Between the southern 

 part of the Delta, where the natural drainage is sufficient, and the 

 northern low-lying fallow country, which has been recently in part 

 reclaimed, lies a central zone whose crops have gradually decreased, 

 because the soil has been too copiously watered, and has therefore 

 become salty and sour. 



After careful experiments on the States Domains and private 

 estates had proved that the cotton crop can be doubled in many 

 places if the sub-soil water can be kept 1^ metres below the surface, 

 extensive drainage works on the lines of a scheme, approved by Sir 

 William Garstin, have been begun in the spring of 1912, in the 

 central and northern districts of the Delta. It is thought that these 

 drainage works will be completed within four years at a cost of 

 1\ million sterling, and will transform into culturable land 480,000 

 feddans in the province of Behera, including the reclamation of the 

 55,000 feddans of the Lake of Mareotis, and 470,000 feddans in the 

 province of Garbieh, with drainage into the Burlos Lake. 



The first sod for this piece of engineering work was turned by 

 Lord Kitchener, in March of 1912, at Ebshan, in the Garbieh 

 Province. 



A portion of this reclaimed land is to be allotted, on the initiative 

 of Lord Kitchener, in 5 feddan lots to poor peasants, in such a 

 way that they will only have to pay for by easy instalments within 

 15 years, the Government's cost of the reclamation; indeed, a 

 beginning with this land distribution has already been made in 1912, 

 when 500 and 1,000 feddans were given out. These methods corre- 

 spond with the views of Lord Kitchener, who wishes to prevent that 

 the lion share of the yield of the soil should flow into the pockets of 

 land speculators. 



The method of reclamation of the inland lakes which the 

 Government has lately taken up had already been successfully 

 applied, on a smaller scale, by the Aboukir Company. This com- 

 pany, which was established in 1887, pumped the water out of the 

 smallest marine lake, called the Aboukir Lake, which measured 12^ 

 by 9^ kilometres, and had its surface of soil one metre below the 

 sea. This former lake is now a most flourishing estate, in a high state 

 of cultivation ; originally the area was 30,000 feddans, the major 

 portion of which has been gradually sold at good prices, and now 

 there remains only 10,000 feddans to the company. 



EGYPTIAN FARMING. 



In accordance with the wonderful fertility of the soil, the 

 resources of the country are almost exclusively agricultural, and 

 farming products will remain for a long time the greatest source of 

 the wealth of Egypt. 



In the main there are cultivated : For their own supply, although 

 that does not cover the whole of the indigenous consumption, cereals, 

 such as maize, wheat, barley, dry-millet, and rice; leguminous 

 crops such as beans or Ful, the Egyptian national dish, peas and 

 lentils, of cattle food crops especially the Egyptian clover, lupins, 

 lucerne, green maize, Greek hay and hen-millet (Panicum crus 



