In pursuance of this idea, he began to make experiments, testing it, so to speak, by forming plantations. These turned out so well that he proceeded to take further steps, and with great enterprise commenced the cultivation upon a large scale. Many thousands of the Egyptian acres were planted in the lower provinces, and to a far greater extent planting was carried on in the rich lands of Upper Egypt bordering on the Nile. The little trees responded freely to the Egyptian cultivation; the rich, irrigated soil, yearly replenished by the sediment left by the floods, proved that the ancients were right, and wherever the land was deep the results were most favourable; while where a bad selection had been made, and the soil was shallow and inferior, the return of the pods, or technically _bolls_, was poor. The method of its cultivation will be given _in extenso_ farther on, but it will be as well to note here, in regard to the enterprise which turned Egypt into its present state as one of the great cotton-growing countries of the world, that the seed was originally imported from Brazil, though it is undoubtedly a native of Northern Africa; and at the present time the returns are very great. The preparation of the land for the growth of cotton commences in January. The seed is sown from the middle of February till the middle of March, and the cropping harvested, or picked, about the end of November; while previous to the last picking of the soft woolly pods, clover seed is sown amongst the standing cotton trees. This, so to speak, stolen crop provides a supply for horses, cattle, and sheep till the end of June; for it must be borne in mind that Egypt is not a land of fields and meadows enclosed by hedgerows; hence grazing for cattle is the result of foresight, and has to be provided as required. On the land not sown with clover, and at the end of the cotton harvest, after the little trees have been uprooted, a crop of beans is sown, which becomes ready for harvesting in April; and now there is a period in which the agriculturist may take his choice of sowing what may be termed catch crops, or fallowing his land for five months. In this he is guided by position and the facility offered for the disposal of such easy crops as water melons or maize, which can be taken after beans. It is at the end of October that he begins to think of his main crops, when wheat and barley are sown, to be harvested from the beginning of May to the end of June. Then follows the main crop of maize, which occupies the land from July 15th to November 15th. Previous to the harvesting of this main crop of maize, clover is again sown, and from this one or two pasturings are obtained before the land is broken up once more for the succeeding important crop of cotton, this completing the rotation.