THE TECHNOLOGIST. [Sept. 1, 1865 
PROGRESS OF COTTON CULTURE IN EGYPT. 
From no other available source of cotton supply can we now obtain 
cotton of such good quality as that grown in Egypt. It has a fineness 
and strength which make it suitable for the best goods, and a length of 
staple adapted to the machinery now in use in the Lancashire cotton- 
mills. It has borne a high price since the stoppage of shipments from 
America, but it is found that we can now depend upon large quantities 
of Egyptian cotton at prices at which it is doubtful if the American 
planters will for a long time be able to compete. The Egyptians have 
shown an energy and thoroughly commercial enterprise in dealing with 
their golden opportunity, even beyond what might have been expected 
from a people far more advanced in modern civilization. They have 
drained and irrigated and planted, they have encouraged the construc- 
tion of railways, and every work of public improvement, and they are 
now availing themselves of every mechanical means which European 
ingenuity has placed at their disposal for the cultivation of cotton. It 
is extraordinary how large are the orders already executed, and still in 
course of execution, for steam engines, centrifugal pumps, steam-plows, 
and cotton-gins, for the Egyptian cotton farms. There are now upwards 
of two hundred steam-plows at work in Egypt ; the number of steam- 
pumps is probably still greater, and the cotton-gins are countless ; there 
being several towns and Tillages having from twenty to thirty ginning 
factories each. The Viceroy has 150,000 fedans. or acres, of land under 
cultivation with cotton ; his uncle, Haleem Pasha, who has sixty steam 
engines and fourteen steam-plows at work, is cultivating 50,000 acres, 
and others of lower rank, or of no rank at all, are, in the aggregate, 
working a still larger acreage. The cotton plant is most productive in 
Egypt, and although the proportion of cleaned lint to seed cotton is 
considerably lower than in the case of American cotton, some of the 
irrigated lands of Egypt have produced as much as 900 lbs. of clean 
cotton per acre in one year, a quantity which is tenfold greater than the 
average yield of cotton fields in India. The Egyptian cotton lands pay 
an annual tax of 11. per acre to Government, and their ordinary rental 
is 51. per acre. These are charges quite beyond anything kno,wn to the 
American planters of former days, but they are in part compensated for 
by the greater yield and superior quality of the Egyptian staple, and by 
the aid derived from steam. In no country in the world is cotton again 
likely to be grown by slave labour, and hence, whatever the effect upon 
the future price of the article, the greatest advantage enjoyed by the 
American planter is gone for ever. Whether he will now avail himself, 
as the Egyptians have clone, of steam machinery, or the next best 
resource, remains to be seen ; it is, of course, for the interest of this 
country that he should. We cannot have too many or too abundant 
sources of supply. But with the exception, perhaps, of America, the 
