LAND RECLAMATION. 209 



would not make more than forty trips per day transport- 

 ing eight cubic metres. This is 52 days work per feddan 

 costing 12 P.T. per day for bullocks and man or over 

 L.E. 6 per feddan to remedy a slight slope. 



When land is really uneven and a metre or more is 

 removed to fill adjacent hollows, the cost often runs to 

 L.E. 20 per feddan. A heavy iron lowatah worked by steam 

 ploughing engines is now in use by several large admi- 

 nistrations in Egypt. Half a dozen ordinary kassabias 

 have also been attached to a beam and worked by steam 

 ploughing engines. The speed is much greater than is 

 attained by bullocks. Two engines are needed, and if 

 levelling down is all in one direction one engine only pulls 

 back empties. Another form of kassabia is a large iron 

 box carried on rollers. This requires heavy engine power, 

 but is very effective especially on sandy sand. 



Cultivation. There is no crop which will grow on land 

 containing two per cent, of common salt and there can be 

 no proper cultivation on land with one per cent. It is 

 easy to wash salt out of land till only one or two per cent, 

 remains, but this residual salt is quite enough to prevent 

 crops growing. When land has been washed as described, 

 for six months, it is then ploughed and sown to dineba, a 

 small millet, botanically "Panicum Crux Galli" or to rice. 

 Dineba is a waste product of the rice mills and is cheap. 

 It will stand more salt than rice and will not die so readily 

 as that crop if water is scarce or even lacking for some 

 days. Rice seed often contains much dineba and it is 

 quite common to find fields where rice has all died down 



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