MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS 479 



stream, the Baraka, flowing from the Abyssinian hills, 

 fertilizes annually with its silt a portion of the large delta 

 of land which it has formed near the town of Tokar. 

 Some 40,000 acres of this alluvial area are planted 

 annually with cotton, and the bulk of the yield, which 

 has been gradually improved to a high quality under the 

 supervision exercised by the Government, is equal to or 

 better than " Fully Good Fair" Egyptian, notwithstand- 

 ing the rude methods of agriculture still employed and 

 uncertainty as to the direction which the flood will take. 



At Tayiba, near Wad Medani on the Blue Nile, in the 

 Gezira, about no miles south of Khartoum, a ''demon- 

 stration " area was put under cultivation three years ago, 

 in order to prove the possibility of growing cotton under 

 conditions representative of those which will prevail 

 under the Gezira irrigation scheme. 



Native tenants at Tayiba have taken most readily to 

 the up-to-date methods of agriculture demanded of them, 

 and remarkable yields of cotton grown as a commercial 

 crop have been obtained. In the first year the average 

 yield per acre over 250 acres exceeded 1,560 Ib. of seed- 

 cotton, and in the second year the average yield over 

 610 acres was 1,786 Ib. seed-cotton per acre. Excellent 

 crops are now maturing in the present or third season 

 of cultivation. 



The aptitude displayed by the native tenant farmer at 

 Tayiba is not surprising, since every year, when the 

 rainfall in the Gezira has been adequate, the people on 

 their -own initiative have grown considerable quantities of 

 cotton as a rain crop. 



As far as cotton growing is concerned, the gradual 

 exploitation of the millions of acres in the Gezira and of 

 one or two other promising fields, such as the Tokar and 

 Kassala districts, will provide full scope for the cultiv- 

 ating capacity of the Sudan for years to come. 



The development of cotton land in other parts of the 

 country, also to be reckoned in millions of acres, can be 

 left to a future generation. 



The Gezira scheme gives partial effect to an idea which 

 has always been present in the mind of those occupied 

 with agricultural policy in the Sudan, viz., to afford some 



