FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



February 



although he has adopted modern cos- 

 tumes to a considerable extent and has 

 allowed the women of his family to come 

 into contact with foreigners, he moves 

 very slowly. Even Cairo, with all its 

 modern improvements, retains its me- 

 dueval customs and appearance, and is 

 still the city of the Arabian Nights. No 

 matter how much of the surface may be 

 covered with new buildings, old Cairo 

 remains, and will remain, and the evi- 

 dence of modern life we see is only a 

 veneer. Nevertheless, it is scarcely pos- 

 sible to believe that the farmer does not 

 appreciate what has been done for him. 

 The signs are certain, as I will explain. 

 He can not be insensible to the improve- 

 ment of his condition. 



It is also a question of even greater im- 

 portance, particularly to us, how much 

 the cotton crop of Egypt will be in- 

 creased by the construction of the new 

 dam at Assuan and the extension of the 

 irrigation system. The cotton-growers 

 of the United States, however, need not 

 be alarmed. It will be a long time before 

 the cotton fields of Egypt are extended 

 to a degree that will be felt by the 

 planters of the United States, and the 

 increase will be much less than is popu- 

 larly expected. 



Under the present system the valley 

 of the Nile is producing all that it is 



capable of, and the only way to increase 

 the products and the wealth of the coun- 

 try is to bring more land under irriga- 

 tion. The present area has not been 

 increased to any considerable extent 

 for many centuries, although projects 

 have been frequently proposed. When 

 Joseph, the son of Jacob, was prime 

 minister for Pharaoh he conceived the 

 idea of turning the surplus water of the 

 upper Nile into what is known as the 

 province of Fayum, about fifty miles 

 south of Cairo. A vast depression in 

 the desert, known as L,ake Mceris, by 

 his skillful engineering, became a por- 

 ductive oasis, which has added hun- 

 dreds of millions of dollars to the wealth 

 of the nation. Mr. Cope Whitehouse, 

 son of the late Bishop Whitehouse, of 

 Illinois, who has spent much time in 

 Egypt, and is familiar with the desert, 

 as well as the irrigation system, sub- 

 mitted to the government a few years 

 ago a plan to extend the irrigation sys- 

 tem built by Joseph and utilize it for the 

 benefit of the country. The khedive 

 wrote him a letter of thanks and con- 

 ferred upon him the decoration of a grand 

 commander of the Order of the Medjid- 

 jeah, but his English advisers poked the 

 plan into a pigeon-hole and no one has 

 ever been able to persuade them to pull 

 it out again. 





tan 



THE LOCKS BY WHICH VESSELS PASS AROUND THE WEST END OF THE DAM. 



