16 

 (4) COMMERCIAL. 



I apply this term in the strictly limited sense denned above. 

 The Agricultural Section can, at the most, produce what constitutes 

 a mere fraction of the seed required for sowing, and purity will not be 

 maintained without some organization to control the crop and to 

 prevent admixture followed by degeneration, after the seed passes 

 beyond direct Ministerial control. 



Collateral Lines.* 



(5) ENTOMOLOGICAL. 



This section of the Ministry is the most highly organized at the 

 present time. The subject, too, lies outside the scope of this report. 

 Reference is made to this line of investigation here merely with the 

 object of indicating that Ihave not overlooked the subject, and that 

 I recognize that any proposals that I am led to make would be of 

 little advantage did they not fit into the scheme as a whole. 



(6) MYCOLOGICAL. 



From the aspect of the cotton crop pure and simple there appears 

 to be small field for mycological work, though its importance may 

 develop at any moment. From the point of view of the general 

 activities of the Ministry as a whole there is, especially in relation 

 to horticulture, considerable scope for mycological investigation. 



(7) BACTERIOLOGICAL. 



Such investigation is concerned with agriculture generally, and 

 is concerned with the subject of cotton merely in as far as that forms 

 one, although the most important, of the crops grown. Little work 

 has been done on bacterial action in the soils of Egypt. The field 

 is large, important, and practically unexplored ; there can be little 

 doubt that such action is of considerable magnitude and, if controlled, 

 capable of exerting considerable influence on crop development. 

 On the one hand, the study connects up with purely agricultural 



* A certain amount of criticism has been directed against the omission of any reference to 

 chemistry in the list of subjects here enumerated. I think, however, it will be clear that such 

 omission implies no disparagement of the work of the chemist. It must be remembered that I am 

 not concerned with the activities of the Ministry in their entirety, but merely with those activities 

 as they concern the cotton problem. The centre of gravity is thus shifted, and my enumeration 

 extends beyond those subjects which directly bear on that problem only to a degree sufficient 

 to indicate how my proposals dovetail into the general organization. The subjects are necessarily 

 dealt with incompletely and in a somewhat different order from that in which they would occur 

 were a review of the entire activities of the Ministry under consideration. 



