10 BULLETIN 271, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Desert, that the Hayany reaches its earliest maturity, coming to the 
markets as ‘‘ Bala Birket el Hagei”’ (dates of Birket el Hadji) the first 
of September. It is doubtless with a view to catching this early 
market that large plantations of the Hayany are being made on the 
sandy lands in Gizeh Mudirieh, Bees the Libyan Desert above 
the Great Pyramids. 
THE DESERT SUBTROPICAL ZONE. 
The next distinctive zone of date culture comprises the narrow Nile 
Valley of Upper Egypt, from Gizeh to Aswan, and the Libyan oases 
of Fayum, Siwah, Baharich, Dakhleh, and Khargeh. For a proper 
understanding of the conditions, this zone should be considered under 
three subdistricts: (1) Upper Gizeh, (2) Fayum and the Nile Valley 
to Aswan, and (3) the western Libyan oases. 
SUBDISTRICT OF UPPER GIZEH, 
While upper Gizeh includes but a small a area, it 1s depriede dis- 
tinctive in the character of the dates grown and ah methods of culture 
and handling. For its temperature records and the number of avail- 
able heat units we must look rather to the records of Abbasia and 
Heluan than to those of the Gizeh station. | 
Proximity to the Arabian Desert on the east and to the Libyan 
Desert on the west gives to this district, best represented in the vicinity 
of the railway stations of Bedrashen and Hauamdiyeh, a climate dis- 
tinctly hotter and drier than that of the delta proper and only pre- 
_ vented from being still more desertlike by the prevailing northerly 
winds which, blowing from the Mediterranean over the irrigated delta, 
have only begun parting with their watery vapor and are but slowly 
acquiring the desert heat. However, a difference of a few degrecs in 
the mean temperature of the growing months, and the accumulation 
of about 500 more available heat units, enable ‘the growers of this dis- 
trict to produce a packing date equal to the best in Egypt and only 
awaiting the development of modern, sanitary, and attractive methods 
of handling to take its place with the Deglet Noor and Fard dates, 
which are imported to supply the high-class trade in Cairo. The 
Siwah is the important variety of this section, though considerable 
quantities of the Amhat are also packed. (PI. III, fig.2.) Detailed 
descriptions of the Siwah and the discussion of the problem of its 
relation to the Saidy of the oases will be found in the following pages. 
The points of greatest economic importance to Egypt are, first, that 
this valuable variety, the Siwah, could be grown as well or even better 
on up the valley past Wasta ond to the great date-growing section 
about Assiut and in the Fayum, where it is only beginning to be 
planted. It could very profitably replace thousands of balady, or 
seedling, trees of those districts, the low-grade fruit of which is 
scarcely more valuable than the leaf products. 
