Agriculture -- Egypt; Egypt -- Description and travel
This variety is named "Miscowy," and stands copious watering. The first
and second crops contain about eighty per cent, of moisture. The third
crop may be made into hay, and the fourth crop--part only--may be
threshed to furnish seed. The gross weight of the four crops, cut
green, may be estimated at thirty tons, or five tons of hay. The
work-bullocks, cows, buffaloes, horses, etc., are tethered by a rope
attached to their fore-legs and fixed to a peg driven into the ground,
the cattlemen moving the animals forward as required. The cattle lie
out at night while pasturing on the clover.
If the crop of clover is near a large town where dairymen require green
pasture, the price per feddan, to be consumed on the land, may be put at
4 pounds, 3 pounds, 3 pounds 10 shillings, 3 pounds 10 shillings for the
four crops, or a total of 14 pounds. Growers are sometimes troubled by
attacks of cut-worms, which ravage the young shoots of clover; but
flooding with water often destroys the pest. There is also the
parasitic weed Dodder (_Cuscuta Trifolii_), which occasionally does
damage to the crop. The cost of five bushels of clover seed varies from
one pound 10 shillings to 3 pounds 10 shillings, according to supply and
demand. The variety "Fachl" clover occupies a separate place in the
rotation, and will be treated later.
*Wheat*.--Varieties: Common wheat, Bocchi, and Indian. The Bocchi, a
white wheat, is extensively grown. The third, a reddish wheat, has
recently been introduced from India, and gives good crops. Egyptian
wheats are hard, but are deficient in albuminoids. Unfortunately, care
is not taken in selecting the seed, and many samples are badly mixed
with red and white varieties. The crop is sown on fallow land after
clover and beans. The land, previous to sowing the seed, has received a
watering. Fifteen to twenty days after, the seed--two and a half
bushels--is sown broadcast, and is ploughed in by the native plough.
The sowing is very often imperfectly performed, the distribution of the
seed being very irregular. The next process is rolling by drawing a
baulk of wood (see illustration), three yards long, over the land; then
ridges are made seven yards apart to regulate the even distribution of
water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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