The Florida agriculturist., 1907-10-02
Farming in the Valley Of the Nile.


parts that are syndicated to such lead
ing daily papers in the larger cities as
have contracted for them; but, while
all are more or less interesting, the
latest one I have seen, published in
the Denver (Co1o) Republican, has in
it vast amount of information about
a region little known, though in a
country older than any other-that
of Egypt, the wonderful land where
the arts and sciences fourished ages
before Rome was in it's glory.
The river Nile is the artery and
the delta the heart of Egypt Vast
1rrlgating systems costing millions of
dollars have replaced the simple
methods, like the shadoof of lifting
water from the river and now,
through the existence of large dams
and extensive reservoirs on the up
per Nile it is no longer necessary
to wait the overflow of the stream to
fertilize the sandy soil and nourish
the rice, wheat and other fields of the
tellahln who are raising crops to an
extent never dreamed of by the
Pharaohs of old. These Delta lands,
Mr.. Carpenter declares, yield more to
the acre than the lands of any other
country; which is bold assertion and
may not be borne out by actual
hgures. But, where lands yield a
rental OF $50 per acre and in some
instances even more, they must of
necessity be very rich and very pro-
life of crops. The cultivatable land.
all told, does not amount to more
than SIX million acres, and as there
are at least one million land owners,
large farms are an exceptions; over
one million acres are in tracts of
from tive to twenty acres and Six
sevenths of all the land belongs to
native owners, which is a fact not
generally known to the outside world
At one time the Khedive owned i'm
mense areas that have since fallen TO
the British government; these have
been divided and sold on long time
ana easy payments to the fellahin.
VINO are eager to own even so small
tract as one acre, and it is Said there
are thousands of such acre farms.
lhe foreign owners do not number
over Six thousand
The rich mud of which the land is
composed is from thirty to sixty feet
deep Il wonder what will convert
our sand ridges of similar depth to
fertility equal to this mud?) and
OF course, fertilizing facilities do not
exist IN Egypt save the one great one
OF Natures own creation, in the mud
dy water of the Nile, bringing down
from Abysslnia fertilizer that beats
any OF Our commercial ones. and
don't cost from thirty to fifty dollars
ton to those who use it. On the
farms there are no fences, no barns.
no buildings to live in; those who
cultivate live in towns or villages.
Dtt go out before sunrise and return
after sunset; they grow two or three
crops In the year in way that would,
as Mr.. Carpenter says, ''make the
american farmer sneer; he would
tell them they were 1000 years behind
the times, and still, if he were allowed
to take their place, he would probab-
ly ruin the country and himself"
They plow as their ancestors did
5000 years ago, scratching. the soil
with an instrument made of "a pole
about six feet long fastened to
piece OF wood bent inward at an
acute angle. The end piece is shod
with iron, the pole is hitched to
buffalo by means of yoke and the
farmer walks along behind the p1ow
holding its single handle which con-
sists of a stick set almost upright into
the pole" Primitive? Well, yes, but
oG