108 



THE GAKDEN AND FIELD. 



August, 1913 



An Egyptian Date Planta- 

 tion. 



The following is taken from an ar- 

 ticle by Sir H. Rider Haggard in a re- 

 cent issue of the London "Times." 

 W'e believe the Arab proverb should 

 have been quoted as "The date palm, 

 the queen of trees, must have her feet 

 in running water, and her head in the 

 burning sky." 



In April of the present year, whilst 

 struggling back against a bitter wind 

 from Sakhara, to the Pyramids, just 

 about the spot where the Sphinx 

 comes into view, I observed on the 

 further side of a low bank lines of 

 many small tent-like shelters made of 

 the dried stalks of Indian corn. At 

 the time I wondered what was plant- 

 ed here which needed such protection 

 in tliat climate; but as the objects of 

 my visit to Egypt were archaeological, 

 not agricultural, and I was almost as 

 weary as the jackass on which I rode, 

 I did not stop to make enquiries. 

 Some days later good fortune threw 

 me into the company of Mr. G. L. 

 Bailey, the manager of the farm 

 known as the Pyramid Estates, and 

 afterwards into that of Mr. F. 

 Formby Back, the owner of the 

 "Egyptian Gazette," who is its prin- 



cipal proprietor. Under the guidance 

 of these gentlemen I made two visits 

 to this farm, which proved to be the 

 same that I had passed upon my ride. 

 What I saw there was to my mind 

 so remarkable that I propose to give 

 some account of it to the readers of 

 "The Times." 



— Pyramids Estates. — 

 The property, which is about ten 

 miles from Cairo, covers 750 feddans, 

 or, say 800 acres of land, and lies in 

 a long strip on the very edge of the 

 desert. Its level is such that it can 

 be irrigated during the Nile flood, and 

 thus it annually receives the fertilis- 

 ing deposit that is the source of 

 Egypt's wealth. Moreover, beneath 

 its unpromising and sandy surface — 

 for until a few years ago it was de- 

 sert such as that without the bank — 

 are ample supplies of good water, the 

 infiltration from the Nile. On every 

 two acres of the land, or rather of 

 that portion of it which is devoted to 

 the cultivation of date palms, is a well 

 about 30 ft. in depth, fitted with a 

 pump and a cement tank. Also there 

 are three artesian wells sunk at con- 

 venient spots upon the property and 

 equipped with powerful steam machi- 

 nery. From these water can be de- 

 livered at the rate of 672,000 gallons 

 per hour into cemented channels, of 



which a length of nearly five miles 

 has already been constructed on th^ 

 property. The proprietors are direct- 

 ing their attention to a more perma- 

 nent return than is furnished by an- 

 nual crops — namely, to dates, the 

 "bread of Egypt," and the staple food 

 of its population. 



— Conditions of Date Cultivation. — 



The date-palm can only be success- 

 fully cultivated under certain ascer- 

 tained conditions. Thus, in the words 

 of the Arabic . saying, its feet must 

 be in the water and its head in the 

 sun. The roots need a constant sup- 

 ply of underground moisture, and 

 the crown should enjoy continual and 

 scorching sunlight. Also, it prefers 

 a sandy, soil, for which reason it does 

 not bear so well in the clay of the 

 Delta, or so I am informed. There 

 is no disease which hurts the date, 

 except that occasioned by an abnor- 

 mal rainfall while the fruit is setting, 

 an accident which has never been 

 known to happen in this part of 

 Egypt. Damp on its foliage is its 

 great enemy, and" therefore I believe 

 it will not thrive in Ceylon and other 

 places where the cocoanut flourishes. 



« 



Fertilizers for Small Fruits. 



The fact that most of our soils by 

 analysis show plant food content suf- 

 ficient to last for a thousand years 

 of continual cropping has helped us 

 to arrive at an erroneous conclusion 

 — namely, that the best soil manage- 

 ment was a remote problem and well 

 enough left to generations yet to 

 come. We have too often lost sight 

 of the fact that this great store of 

 soil fertility has been mostly locked 

 up in insoluble forms by a master hand 

 and so preserved in reasonable pro- 

 portions for countless generations yet 

 to come, and hence the man who re- 

 solves to overdraw his deposit at the 

 cost of others that come after him 

 soon comes up against a divine law 

 that says most emphatically, "Thus 

 far shal thou go and no farther." 

 While misuse and reckless cropping 

 result in a rapid degeneration of any 

 normal soil, the reverse method, we 

 are happy to say, when thoroughly 

 and timely applied is also followed by 

 most encouraging results. 



Soil management for the fruit crop 

 rcc|uircs greater care and closer over- 

 siglit than do other farm crops. Small 

 fruits, and especially those of a viney 



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Emerald (Vic), Australia 



