It may be here added that all great advance and reversals of custom should be cautiously attempted with the land. Still Nature is easier to deal with than man, and less likely to resent alteration when attempted by a practised hand. As a whole, for the encouragement of those who wish to try the experiment in a foreign land, let them understand that farming in Egypt is child's play compared to that in Great Britain. There are no wet hay and cereal harvests, there is neither snow nor frost to damage the crops, no high winds, no floods, no ground game to do mischief: In the season of hay-making, with no possibility of a drop of rain falling, the fellah makes the worst of all hay by allowing it to be burnt to an indigestible fibre--would that he had a training in the uncertain climate of Great Britain! The wheat is harvested when dead ripe. Part may be cut, and part may be allowed to remain for six weeks without deterioration. A contrast this to the harvests in bonnie Scotland, where the corn has lain sodden until it has rotted away in the deplorable weather of the year 1903. There is a good old proverb that is applicable to most things--certainly to farming in Egypt. It is that "the less there is to do, the worse it is done." Verily it is so here. Nature is most kindly, and with ample moisture, abundant fertilisation, and plenteous sunshine, she does pretty well half of the fellahs' work thoroughly well, while their half to complete the operations is carried out with a careless indifference to success that is deplorable. The people's wants are few, and now that under a generous rule they have liberty and payment for the work they perform, they seem quite content to plod on in easy slothfulness. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, so why wear themselves out by toil and the struggle for things better than those which surround them? All this in connection with the possibilities of this country raises the question, Can the practice of Egyptian agriculture be improved? The answer of one who has toiled amongst the people for years, whose work has been that of reclaiming tracts of desert land, making endless experiments as to the best suited crops for Egypt and the best ways of producing them, is: Emphatically, yes! THE END. End of Project Gutenberg's The Khedive's Country, by George Manville Fenn