40 BULLETIN 1457, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
nitrogen and humus to the soil, which in many cases is beginning to 
suffer from lack of the annual deposit of Xile silt which it formerly 
received under basin irrigation. The grazing of sheep and goats 
and even cattle and donkeys under the date trees insures that nothing 
that any animal can eat will go to waste. 
DATE PALMS AND OTHER FRUIT TREES 
Occasionally a tract of several feddans will be given to a mixed 
culture of date palms and limes or guavas. In such tracts the palms 
are usually scattering, not more than 30 or 40 to the feddan. In 
such orchards as were observed the date palms were not at their 
best and it is to be doubted whether other trees were. Only de- 
tailed records of the yields of both crops over a period of years could 
determine whether such a system of culture is profitable. Brown 
(5, vol. 6, p. 29) attributes the low yield of certain Hayany trees 
at Giza to the fact that " they are intermingled with other trees. 
such as guavas." 
Around Alexandria and Ramleh considerable attention has been 
given in the last few years to the growing of a small variety of 
banana, and the profits derived from some gardens tempted the own- 
ers of several Hayany gardens to underplant their trees with 
bananas. It was only where the date palms were very open and 
scattering, giving the bananas full sunlight, that there was any de- 
gree of success in this. 
In estate gardens, sometimes of several feddans, where dates are 
grown as a part of a general production of fruit and vegetables, 
the date palms are not usually more than 30 or 40 to a feddan, often 
not more than 20. They are apt to be distributed around the borders 
or along walks or drives. From the outside they give the impression 
of being closely planted, when really they have plenty of room and 
thrive accordingly. 
Undercultures of legumes, vegetables, or shallow-rooted fruit 
shrubs may be made to advantage among palms occupying 85 to 100 
square yards of space if a full supply of water and fertilizer is 
assured; but the writer is convinced that strong-rooting fruit trees 
of the citrus family, guavas, and figs can not be made commercially 
profitable without greatly reducing the number of palms. 
CULTIVATING AND IRRIGATING 
The cultivation of date gardens in Egypt is desultory, and beyond 
a shiftless scratching of the soil for sowing wheat or berseem little 
is done except in carefully kept domestic gardens. Where there is 
a perennial supply of water from canals, irrigation is usually by 
flooding. Many gardens or small plats lying just above gravity 
water are watered with an ingenious arrangement of the Archimedean 
screw which looks like a staved cylinder on the outside, but has 
spiral septa skillfully built within. This is set up at an angle of 
about 30°, and the lower end is plunged in a canal or pool of water. 
With fellah power applied to an iron crank quite a stream of water 
may be lifted 2 or 3 feet. Then the apparatus can be taken across 
a donkey's back in front of his rider and moved to another field or 
returned to the neighbor who lent it. 
