i:>i; EG YPTIAfl A&RlC'ULTLfRE. 



in search of food. It dries land and makes it workable, 

 and also inakes the soil warmer. It lowers the water table, 

 which unless kept well below the surface is simply a source 

 Fron i which capillarity draws water up to the surface of 

 the Ijind to be evaporated by the hot sun, leaving a salt 

 incrustation inimical to all vegetable life. Again, beneficent 

 bacterial life flourishes better in well drained soil and 

 agricultural science is now recognising the new doctrine, 

 that the biological conditions of a soil arc just as important 

 as the chemical and physical conditions. 



It is only in the last twenty years that drainage has 

 received due attention from the Irrigation Department. 

 Between 1885 and 1905 there were constructed 41 85 

 kilometres of drains at a cost of L.E. 1,468,1 87. Previous 

 to the former date very few drains existed. 



In Upper Egypt, the Nile itself forms the great drain. 

 At flood the whole land is under water for a short time, 

 but the excess is quickly drained off the surface. As the 

 river falls the water table gradually sinks, but not so 

 quickly as to get away from the roots of the plant, nor 

 so slowly as to become sour and stagnant and injure them. 

 So long as this beautiful provision of nature is not inter- 

 fered with, Upper Egypt will not require drainage, except 

 for low lands far from the river and cut off from it by 

 perennial canals. For lands so situated provision is now 

 being made by Government. 



In Lower Egypt, however, far greater distances from the 

 river prevail, the river has not the same extremes of rise 

 and fall, and perennial canals exist everywhere. Conse- 

 quently an enormous number of drains have been dug all 

 over Lower Egypt. They generally occupy a position 

 midway between two large canals which between them 



