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The Nile makes Egypt independent of the weather changes. No 
rains or droughts endanger her harvests so that little risk is con- 
nected there with the cultivation of cotton. 
The cultivated cotton plant requires a growing time of from 4^ 
to 5^ months according to the kind and to the climate, on the 
average 5 months. 
It is not simply grown as an annual but as a perennial plant 
which can only be done exclusively in forest-free places. But the 
cultivation of this is less profitable, as the second and subsequent 
crops decrease in quality as well as in quantity. 
The cotton plant requires for its vegetation a temperature of 
i8°C. This must never fall to 0 °C. Shade does not suit the plant. 
As regards the soil cotton is grown with more or less success on 
nearly all sorts of soil. It is grown on light sandy soil, heavy clay 
soil, sulphur-bearing soil etc. 
On the higher lying sandy soils, the harvest of cotton is gene- 
rally small, on heavy clay soils, especially in wet seasons the 
plants attain large dimensions but the produce of fibre is not 
proportionate. 
It is an established experience that cotton growing on these 
extremes of soils, suffers more from disease and plagues, and from 
unsuitable temperatures than otherwise. If the temperature is 
suitable and other factors good, then the heaviest clay soils yield 
the biggest harvests. 
The light clay soils may be looked upon as those yielding the 
surest harvests. 
The soils of South Carolina which may be taken as a model of the 
best cotton soil consist of from 25-30% of clay. At the time of 
growing they contain from 10 to (2% of moisture. 
The Sea-island cotton, the best kind* grows on very different 
kinds of soil but the best for it is light fine-grained sandy soil 
which has from 75 to 90 % of fine sand. It contains during the 
growing-time of the cotton about 5 % of moisture. The percent- 
ages of the moisture in the soils are of great importance to us. 
It seems to us though that there are to be found here, fairly few 
soils, which have even in the driest mouths such a low percentage 
of moisture, as those cotton lands in America of which mention 
has just been made above. 
During the severe drought of 1902, when the leaves of different 
plants in the Agricultural Gardens were drooping, we found that 
the soil on which those plants were growing still shewed the fol- 
lowing percentages of moisture 
At a depth of 3 c. in. 18.4 %. 
„ „ 25 „ 22.2 „ 
„ » 60 „ 24.8 „ 
