154 EGYPTIAN AGRICULTURE. 



crop, and all of it in winter crop. Theoretically he should 

 have one third in summer crop of rice or cotton, one sixth 

 under maize which is a Mli or flood crop, and the whole 

 area under winter crops of wheat, barley, beans, and 

 bereeem. 



In favoured localities that system is quite disregarded, 

 for half the land is under cotton, more than a third under 

 maize sown as a summer crop, and the area of the winter 

 crops is only restricted by the cultivator having so little 

 summer fallow that he cannot prepare land for winter 

 crops till he is clear of the cotton and maize. 



The completion of the great Nile dam at Assouan and 

 the filling of the reservoir had very marked effects on 

 Egyptian agriculture. The storage "capacity of the reser- 

 voir was 1000 million metres cube, equal to a supply of 10 

 million metres during the 100 days of summer scarcity. 

 The dam is now being hightened to hold up another 7 

 metres depth of water, and the capacity of the reservoir 

 will be doubled. This is added to the usual summer 

 discharge. The mean of 20 years' discharge at Assouan 

 during the months of April, May, and June is 45 million 

 metres daily. The increased supply is therefore only 44 per 

 cent, and a good deal of that is to be used in Upper Egypt 

 on lands which have not hitherto had perennial water. 

 There have, however, been years when the daily discharge 

 at Assouan has dropped below 20 million cubic metres in 

 the month of May, and the Nile dam will now prevent 

 anything like the dangerous scarcity which occurred in 

 such years. 



Whilst the Assouan dam has for its object the storage 

 of water, there are other barrages meant only for distri- 

 bution. These by raising artificially the level of the river 

 permit the great canals to be filled. In Upper Egypt 



