The binding of the Nile and the new SoudanPeel, Sidney Cornwallis
History
The binding of the Nile and the new Soudan
Peel, Sidney Cornwallis
Irrigation -- Egypt; Nile River; Sudan (Region)
Winter 2,120,000 Wheat, beans, clover, barley, lentils,
flax (little), onions, vetches.
In Lower Egypt, or the Delta, the total area of fully or partly
cultivated land is 3,430,000 acres, and there are still 500,000 acres
of totally unreclaimed land. All this is under perennial irrigation;
half of it is under summer crops every year, and 40 per cent. produces
two crops a year. The following is a similar table to that given
for Upper Egypt:
LOWER EGYPT.
_Season._ _Acreage._ _Crops._
Summer 1,674,000 Cotton, sugar, vegetables, rice.
Flood 980,000 Maize (nearly all), rice.
Winter 2,139,000 Wheat, barley, clover, beans, vegetables,
flax.
Even if we look only to the summer acreage under crops, it is obvious
that the water-supply in the summer is very important; but when we
look to the value of the crop it becomes much more striking. Far the
most valuable crop in Egypt is the cotton, which is the principal
item in the summer. In Upper Egypt the value of a summer crop is,
on the average, more than twice that of a winter crop per acre,
and in the Delta the proportion is nearly the same. And though
the value of the flood crops is increased by the date-palms, of
which there are 5,700,000 paying taxes in Egypt, and whose produce
is gathered at this season, it cannot be compared with the summer
crops. Sugar-cane is now but little grown in the Delta, and even in
Upper Egypt its acreage is rather less than that of cotton.
Valuable as are the cotton-plant and the sugar-cane, it must never
be forgotten that one of the humbler winter crops, though valued
much lower in point of money, is yet the foundation of well-being in
the others—I mean the Egyptian clover, or bersine, the friend of
beast and man alike. Long before I knew its remarkable properties,
I admired it for its beauty. Green and glossy, it covers acre upon
acre with a luxuriant carpet, in pleasing contrast both to the black
soil and the desert sand, and most refreshing and comforting to the
eye. A bundle of it will satisfy even the grumbling camel; even the
melancholy buffalo looks a shade less depressed when her turn comes
to be tethered in it for her meal. Sheep and donkeys can hardly eat
it down fast enough within the circle of their ropes before it has
grown up again. And all the time it is steadily collecting in the
soil the invaluable globules of nitrate, which will put new life
into the succeeding cotton or corn. The part it plays in preparing
the soil can be estimated by the rotations of crops followed by the
Egyptian cultivator. These are as follows:
ON RICH SOILS.
_Winter._ _Summer or Flood._
First year Clover Cotton.
Second year Beans or wheat Indian corn.
ON POOR SOILS.
_Winter._ _Summer or Flood._
First year Clover Cotton.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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