8 BULLETIN" 142, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



and seed remain somewhere near the present levels and that labor 

 can be obtained for picking so large an acreage. 



COMPARISON OF AMERICAN AND EGYPTIAN CONDITIONS. 



The commercial production of Egyptian cotton in the United 

 States involves the marketing of the product in direct competition 

 with the crop of Egypt. This fact warrants a brief consideration 

 of the status of the cotton industry in that country and a comparison 

 between the conditions there and in the southwestern United States. 

 The production in Egypt of cotton having a staple comparable with 

 that of the Salt Eiver Valley product is limited to what is known as 

 Lower Egypt — that is to say, the Nile Delta, north of Cairo. This 

 region includes about 3,250,000 acres of irrigated land, of which about 

 40 per cent is annual^ devoted to cotton. 



This land is heavily capitalized, and the cost of irrigation water is 

 high. These features are best expressed by rental values, which 

 range for the best land from $50 to $75 a year per acre. It is prob- 

 able that the average rental value of land in Lower Egypt is not 

 far from $i0 per acre, being much higher than the average rental 

 value of land in the southwestern United States having similar capa- 

 bilities of crop production. 



While the cotton growers of Arizona and California have the ad- 

 vantage in respect to land rental or interest on land investment, 

 those of Egypt are able to get their cotton picked at much less cost, 

 owing to the cheapness and abundance of labor in that country. 

 Aside from these two items, the cost of production is probably not 

 very different in the two countries, since the low wage paid to farm 

 laborers in Egypt is offset by the fact that the American farmer works 

 with large fields and uses horse-drawn implements extensively. 

 Much of the Egyptian crop, on the other hand, is grown by peasant 

 farmers in small fields and with the use of very primitive imple- 

 ments. 



The Egyptian industrj^ suffers two serious disadvantages which 

 do not exist in Arizona and California. One of these is the difficulty 

 of maintaining pure seed, due to the widespread occurrence of 

 Hindi, or " weed," cotton, which is discussed more in detail else- 

 where in this bulletin. The other is the existence of certain insect 

 pests, notably the pink bollworm, which has recently caused serious 

 and extensive damage and is still spreading. 



It is probable that the higher valuation of land in Egypt, together 

 with the less efficient methods of tillage, nearly or quite offsets the 

 higher cost of labor in the United States. The crop-producing 

 capabilities of the land in the two regions are much the same. The 

 commercial value of the Arizona crop compares favorably with the 

 best of the Egyptian crop. Finally, the Egyptian cotton grown in 



