COTTON IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN. 131 



The pioneer work at Tayiba was begun in July, 1911, under the 

 management of Mr. MacGillivray, and from the first exceptionally 

 favourable results were obtained, although, with the exception of a 

 few tenants who had been brought from Zeidab, not one of the natives 

 had ever before grown cotton under artificial irrigation. With the 

 help of a pumping station on the Blue Nile, a 7ft. wide main canal 

 and two tributary canals, each about 2 km. long, and a close net of 

 ditches, which take the water all over the land, 520 acres were first 

 put under cultivation, and of these 271 were planted with Nubari 

 and Afifi, which, on an average, gave about 4 kantars of lint of an 

 excellent quality. Some planters succeeded in growing as much as 

 5 kantars. 



These experiments are now being continued on a larger scale, 

 and as the district is relatively well-populated, it seems that at least 

 for the beginning there will be no lack of labour. It still remains 

 to be stated that the Government had undertaken experiments in 

 growing Mit Afifi at Wad Medani as far back as 1903. 



The relatively dry district situated between Berber and Sennar 

 has, moreover, the advantage to be free from cotton insects and 

 pests which cause such great damage in all other cotton districts. 

 There are locusts and white ants, but the weeds seem to be absolutely 

 a negligible quantity. 



In 1912 the details of the irrigation scheme for the Gezira have 

 been worked out, and it has been provisionally decided to build a 

 dam on the White Nile between Omdurman and Khartoum, or a 

 little higher up the river, at an expenditure of ^500,000 to ^750,000, 

 in order to store water to replace that taken from the Blue Nile for 

 the irrigation of the Gezira. This dam would materially increase 

 the summer supply available for Egypt, could control the Nile water 

 during the months of September, October, and November, in favour 

 of the basin irrigation of Upper Egypt, and, besides, could bring 

 under cultivation by flood water broad stretches on the river banks 

 on the Kordofan side of the White Nile. A suitable site for the 

 Sennar dam on the Blue Nile is also already fixed. 



In addition to the Blue Nile itself, the districts between its 

 tributaries, the Dinder and Rahad, rising in Abyssinia, seem suitable 

 tracts of great fertility, and, with the aid of the flood of the Rahad, 

 200,000 feddans might be brought under cotton cultivation by irri- 

 gation at an expenditure of E2 per feddan. The types of cotton 

 planted here as rain crops have in the past certainly been of inferior 

 quality, and are mainly for domestic use. But Mit Afifi, planted on 

 the trial farm at Kamlin in 1904, yielded very good results. 



In Kassala, near the Abyssinian frontier, important trial plant- 

 ings of cotton, aided by basin irrigation of the river Gash, a tributary 

 of the Atbara, have been undertaken by the Government, and a 

 superior white quality of cotton, almost better than Abbassi, has 

 resulted. By means of irrigation plants, which would cost about 

 ;E2 per feddan, 200,000 feddans could be brought under cotton 

 cultivation. In order to make the cultivation of cotton into an export 

 industry modern means of transport must first be established in order 

 to carry, at favourable freight rates, the surplus of cotton after satis- 

 fying the domestic requirements. Formerly the transport of these 

 small quantities was made on the backs of camels to Suakin. In 1909, 



