60 COTTON IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN. 



quicker and produce early-ripening plants. The cotton thus gathered 

 is ginned separately. This system is worth following, but is only 

 practised on the Domains and by a few large landowners. 



Only in rare cases is a selection of the picked seed cotton made 

 by hand in the ginneries ; the seed cotton is sorted according to 

 colour and quality, and the different lots are separately ginned, and 

 the resulting seed is kept apart for sowing purposes. 



The large firms which enter into the question for the supply 

 of seed, and who also sell to the Government, select the seed chiefly 

 in the following way : From each variety the seed of the finest lots, 

 which have come in from the first, and sometimes from the second 

 picking, is kept back, i.e., of such cotton which excels in good 

 staple, purity of variety, high-ginning outturn. This seed passes 

 through sorting machines which separate the light and not well- 

 ripened seeds ; it is then put into sealed sacks in which it is 

 delivered to the planters. To distinguish the seed that is kept for 

 sowing from that which is used for crushing, the former is called 

 ' Takkawi," and usually fetches 10 P.T. to 20 P.T. more per ardeb 

 than the ordinary seed. 



The seed obtained from cotton of the third picking is not liked 

 for sowing purposes, but is mostly used in the oil factories ; the seed 

 of the first picking is by far the best. 



The introduction of American cottonseed was prohibited by the 

 Egyptian Government in June, 1904, in order to prevent the importa- 

 tion of foreign insects, and in August, 1909, this prohibition was 

 extended to all foreign countries. In fact, it does not seem to be of 

 any purpose to introduce foreign kinds ; the aim should rather be to 

 establish pure strains of the excellent indigenous kinds, and to im- 

 prove their qualities, and in doing this, attention will have to be paid 

 to early maturing, to good yield, and ginning outturn; the staple 

 must be long, silky, strong, and well twisted. 



How much Egyptian kinds require new blood is shown by Mr. 

 F. Lumbroso, of Alexandria, who has observed, that always after 

 the introduction of a new kind the increased yield rose immediately 

 by 1 to 1^ kantar per feddan, and the ginning outturn by 12 to 14 

 per cent. This increase gradually disappears again with the 

 degeneration of the seed, and after a more or less long period the 

 cultivation of the respective variety must be given up and replaced 

 by a new kind of seed. The life of a variety is stated to be about 

 22 years, and at present not only does Mitafifi decline, but Nubari 

 and Joanovitch also begin to get poorer. What Lumbroso calls 

 " deterioration " is explained by science, simply through the con- 

 tinual and natural hybridisation which is bound to go on when 

 different kinds of cotton are grown in neighbouring fields, where 

 the pollen is carried largely by bees; this hybridisation is made 

 worse through the mixing of seed in the ginneries. 



Since the establishment of the Agricultural Department the 

 Government endeavours to prevent the further degeneration of the 

 Mitafifi, has set up a control over the distribution of the seed 

 for sowing purposes, and above all, it has taken steps to prevent the 

 mixing of seeds with that from Upper Egypt. 



The Agricultural Department buys for this purpose selected seed 

 from those ginneries which are known to be well managed, and sells 



