June 1, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



NOTES ON EGYPTIAN AGRICULTURE. 501 



to the surface by deep ploughing, thus rendering it fit for cultivation, 

 and converting the arid, barren port of Suez into a flourishing agricul- 

 tural district. When the Nile water was let into the canal all Suez 

 rejoiced and glorified the French who had made it. They sent their 

 horses and asses to drink, and congratulated themselves that for the 

 future, instead of buying water by the skinful from Moses' Well, nine 

 miles away, they would have it at their doors gratis. Soon, however, 

 it began to be brackish, and shortly became so salt as not to be 

 potable. 



Every day as the water evaporated, the Nile running low ceasing to 

 feed the canal, thick incrustations of salt were found on the banks, 

 which the Arabs stole and sold. It is still, however, an open question 

 whether some salt-absorbing plants might not be found which, being 

 constantly grown and ploughed in, would after a time produce a soil 

 fit for cultivation. 



2. Produce. — The agricultural produce of Egypt is inimitably 

 varied, as of old. Gourds, succulent roots, melons, onions, and the like 

 are predominantly excellent. For oranges and lemons Egypt might 

 rival Seville and the Azores ; the large blood oranges grown in Shoubra 

 Gardens are particularly delicious, and would fetch a high price in 

 Covent Garden. Peaches, apricots, nectarines, figs, bananas, prickly 

 pears, grow in profusion, and are plucked hot from the tree, owing to the 

 powerful sun. Grapes and pine apples do not succeed so well, on account 

 of the sudden fall of temperature during the night, the thermometer 

 frequently sinking 10 Q in a very short space of time : glass-houses have 

 been, however, ordered out by some of the princes. Dates are produced 

 in enormous quantities, and whether fresh, dried, or mashed, form a 

 large part of the native food, notably of the Bedouins. Each date-bearing 

 palm pays a tax of 3d. a year to the Government ; they are frequently 

 seventy feet high, the dates growing in clusters under the tuft of 

 leaves ; the natives easily climb up with their bare hands and feet to 

 gather them. Though the palm grows to such a height, it has little 

 root, and is frequently blown down; its wood is tough, and makes 

 capital crates. Sycamore figs are sold' in large quantities. An alley of 

 these trees above three miles long, leading from Cairo to Shoubra, forms 

 a complete arcade and yields a good revenue ; it looks 200 years old, 

 though it was only planted forty years ago by Mehemet Ali. 



The staple products of the country are wheat, Indian corn (so-called), 

 or doura (of which the native loaves or flat jacks are made, one or two of 

 a man's wives grinding sufficient meal every day before the mud-hovel 

 door), burseem or Egyptian clover, flax, sugar-cane, chiefly in Saeed or 

 Upper Egypt, rice in Lower Egypt, and mighty cotton everywhere — all 

 these crops are grown on ridges, so that they can be easily irrigated. For 

 cotton the ridges are set out from 3 ft. 6 in. to 4 ft. apart, centre to 

 centre ; the seed is dibbled in at distances of 1 ft. to 1 ft. 6 in. apart, 

 the plants being afterwards hoed. The seed is all in by the end of 



