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be contributed for £3,000,000 for irrigation schemes and railway 
extension. 
This exceptional rate of progress is largely due to the fact 
that for the first time in its history the country is experiencing 
conditions under which economic development is possible, and 
that although the Dervishes decimated the population, there 
was little invested capital or organized industry to suffer from 
their destructive methods save a very crude and simple system 
of agriculture. 
The progress which has been made may be divided shortly 
into three stages :— 
1. The period of pacification. 
2. Railway construction. 
3. Economic expansion. 
The last is distinguished mainly by the fact that means have 
become available for commencing an irrigation scheme for 
cotton growing in the Gezira. 
Under this project some 500,000 acres or 780 square miles 
of land in the Gezira Plain lying between the White and Blue 
Niles, which meet at Khartoum, will be gradually brought 
under cultivation. In the future the area may be extended to 
1,000,000 acres, and in time to come to some 3,000,000 acres. 
Cotton has been grown in the Sudan for centuries, and the 
people are amenable to instruction in up-to-date methods of 
cultivation. This has been shown in the Tokar district in Red 
Sea Province, where excellent cotton has been grown for years 
past, and also at Tayiba in the Gezira, where a demonstration 
area, managed by the Sudan Plantations Syndicate on behalf 
of the Government, has given remarkable yields of Egyptian 
cotton grown by native tenant farmers. 
Millions of acres of cotton land are available for future 
generations in other parts of the country. 
There is a sufficient supply of labour for the gradual exploita- 
tion of the Gezira scheme. The population, also, is increasing 
rapidly, and is being further supplemented by immigration. 
The semi-arab cultivator is proving much more efficient than 
was originally expected. His previous indifferent reputation 
was probably due partly to his lack of opportunity and the 
unsuitable conditions to which agriculture was subject. Un- 
certainty of results under an irregular rainfall tended to 
produce a slipshod cultivator. 
Irrigation will help to remove some of these demoralizing 
influences, and great importance attaches to scientific investi- 
gations, such as will lay a firm foundation for successful 
cultivation under the improved conditions. The spread of 
vernacular education should have great influence in creating 
a sympathy between the cultivator and the pioneers of the 
more advanced principles. 
