10 BULLETIN" 271, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



Desert, that the Hayany reaches its earliest maturity, coming to the 

 markets as "Bala Birket el Haggi" (dates of Birket el Hadji) the first 

 of September. It is doubtless with a view to catching this early 

 market that large plantations of the Hayany are being made on the 

 sandy lands in Gizeh Mudirieh, bordering the Libyan Desert above 

 the Great Pyramids. 



THE DESERT SUBTROPICAL ZONE. 



The next distinctive zone of date culture comprises the narrow Nile 

 Valley of Upper Egypt, from Gizeh to Aswan, and the Libyan oases 

 of Fayum, Siwah, Baharieh, Dakhleh, and Khargeh. For a proper 

 understanding of the conditions, this zone should be considered under 

 three subdistricts : (1) Upper Gizeh, (2) Fayum and the Nile Valley 

 to Aswan, and (3) the western Libyan oases. 



SUBDISTRICT OF UPPER GIZEH. 



While upper Gizeh includes but a small area, it is decidedly dis- 

 tinctive in the character of the dates grown and the methods of culture 

 and handling. For its temperature records and the number of avail- 

 able heat units we must look rather to the records of Abbasia and 

 Heluan than to those of the Gizeh station. 



Proximity to the Arabian Desert on the east and to the Libyan 

 Desert on the west gives to this district, best represented in the vicinity 

 of the railway stations of Bedrashen and Hauamdiyeh, a climate dis- 

 tinctly hotter and drier than that of the delta proper and only pre- 

 vented from being still more desertlike by the prevailing northerly 

 winds which, blowing from the Mediterranean over the irrigated delta, 

 have only begun parting with their watery vapor and are but slowly 

 acquiring the desert heat. However, a difference of a few degrees in 

 the mean temperature of the growing months, and the accumulation 

 of about 500 more available heat units, enable the growers of this dis- 

 trict to produce a packing date equal to the best in Egypt and only 

 awaiting the development of modern, sanitary, and attractive methods 

 of handling to take its place with the Deglet Noor and Fard dates, 

 which are imported to supply the high-class trade in Cairo. The 

 Siwah is the important variety of this section, though considerable 

 quantities of the Amhat are also packed. (PL III, fig. 2.) Detailed 

 descriptions of the Siwah and the discussion of the problem of its 

 relation to the Saidy of the oases will be found in the following pages. 



The points of greatest economic importance to Egypt are, first, that 

 this valuable variety, the Siwah, could be grown as well or even better 

 on up the valley past Wasta and to the great date-growing section 

 about Assiut and in the Fayum, where it is only beginning to be 

 planted. It could very profitably replace thousands of balady, or 

 seedling, trees of those districts, the low-grade fruit of which is 

 scarcely more valuable than the leaf products. 



