4&O MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS 



protection to the cultivator against adversities which 

 from time to time befall him owing to the vicissitudes of 

 a comparatively small and variable rainfall. 



For 1,000 miles south of Khartoum nearly all cul- 

 tivation is dependent on the rains. Their intensity 

 increases -the nearer one approaches the Equator, but they 

 are nowhere reliable. At Khartoum the annual rainfall 

 amounts to about 6 inches; in the extreme south, to 

 some 45 inches; but in the Gezira. tract and throughout 

 the Central Sudan, cultivation is subject to local and 

 periodical droughts, and the husbandman's toil is not 

 unfrequently wasted, though in good seasons he obtains 

 ample crops to tide him over ordinary periods of scarcity. 



Under such erratic conditions efficient and painstaking 

 labour is hardly to be expected, and undoubtedly these 

 recurring disappointments are largely responsible for 

 a type of cultivator who is easily discouraged and, to the 

 European eye, fatalistic and shortsighted. 



The Gezira Canal scheme will turn the flank of this 

 widespread climatic difficulty. It will afford the native 

 security as to the requisites of production over a definite 

 area, gradually increasing within a measurable period up 

 to some half a million acres. It is confidently antici- 

 pated that the scattered population of the Gezira and 

 adjoining districts will rally upon this delectable land, 

 and will abandon the hazardous production of rain-grown 

 crops for the assured results obtainable under irrigation. 

 A relatively small area of intensive cultivation will be 

 substituted for sporadic efforts spread over wide districts. 



An erroneous impression possibly still exists as to the 

 sufficiency of the labour supply in the Sudan. 



It is true that in relation to the total area of cultivable 

 land the quantity of available labour is lamentably 

 deficient, but this state of affairs does not imply that 

 there will be any dearth of cultivators for the Gezira 

 irrigation scheme. 



It has been estimated that for the completed scheme 

 of 500,000 acres, which, of course, will only gradually 

 be brought under cultivation, a cultivating population of 

 80,000 men and 40,000 women and boys will be needed. 

 In the Gezira, north of the railway, there is already a 



