12 BULLETIN 271, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
tree instead of one-fifth of that sum, over £4,000,000 would be added 
to the income of these people. This £4,000,000 a year added to the 
value of the date crop of this narrow stretch of valley of about 500 
miles in length would vastly change the economic conditions of 
Upper Egypt. Of course, it would require years to bring about 
such a change, to convince the native cultivators of the desirability 
of such a change being the most difficult part of the problem. To 
develop the market for the higher-priced product would also require 
time. All of this suggests that the excellent work on dates already 
begun by the horticultural division of the Egyptian Department of — 
Agriculture might profitably be very greatly expanded. 
In the upper end of the valley division the mean temperature rises 
almost to that of the desert tropical, and the air is of a desert dryness. 
Here it is not surprising that we find considerable numbers of the 
date varieties from Nubia, the Sukkot country, and Dongola. What 
may be considered their fancy varieties, the ‘“‘ Bartamoda,’’ Gon- 
deila, and Kulma, are represented by only a few trees, to be sure, 
but the valuable dry date, Barakawi of Dongola (here called ‘‘ Tbrimi’’) 
is a good deal planted, and apparently any seedling with a close 
resemblance to it is admitted into the family. 
SUBDISTRICT OF THE LIBYAN OASES. 
The Libyan oases have a date industry related throughout the 
‘series by the culture of one valuable packing variety, the Saidy. 
(Pl. IV, fig. 1.) A number of other varieties, as the Frihy, Gazaly, 
Kaiby, and Wedi, seem .to be common to Siwah and Baharieh, but 
are not known in Dakhleh and Khargeh. But the great export date 
of all these oases is the Saidy. Whether, as the name suggests, this 
was originally from that part of Upper Egypt known as “‘ Es Siyd”’ is 
wholly a matter of conjecture. The fact that it is scarcely at all 
known there now would make this explanation doubtful. 
No data are available concerning the oasis of Stwah, either as to 
weather conditions or the number of date trees. The only meteoro- 
logical records for these oases are those kept at Mut, the capital of 
Dakhleh, which are given in the annual report of the Ministry of 
Finance for the years 1905 to 1911, inclusive. The data here would 
be fairly representative for Khargeh, but doubtless a few degrees too 
warm for Baharieh and Siwah. Table I shows that the mean annual 
temperature for Dakhleh is a little above a mean between Siut 
(Assiut) and Aswan, while the dryness of the air is greater than at 
Aswan and next to that of Wadi Halfa. The available heat units 
above 64.4° F. reach 3,675, which is very close to the optimum for 
the Deglet Noor at Tuggurt (Tougourt), in Algeria (quoted table 9, 
? Pronounced ‘‘ moot.’’ 
