Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-06-09


stincts of unceasing toll. Sometimes
two buffaloes, or a buffalo and a camel,
are used to turn a water wheel. Ihere
are few wealthy land owners, for the
most part Turco-Egyptians, who are
Using steam pumps, but the FARMERS
who employ modern methods of getting
water from the irrigation bitches are
still a small minority.
One advantage possessed by the Nile
valley farmer is that he does not nave
to wait upon rain. Like the man who
cultivates the reclaimed soil of the ir-
rigated southwest, he can count upon
a certain quantity of products repre-
senting the net results of soil and sun.
| and water applied In the right quantity
| and at the right time. But during the
| period of the greatest inundation the
| Egyptian farmer must be upon MS
guard against storms. Egypt at that
time is a vast lake thinly veined with
dykes. Myriads of water fowl make
their homes in this lake, while the
farming people live upon mounds ana
| make the dykes their roads. Violent
changes of temperature In the desert
cause sudden windstorms in the valley;
An unprotected dyke may be washed
away or the water encroaching upon a
village may cause the mud huts to
crumble. Each village headman is un-
der the responsibility of calling out his
| fellow villagers at the right time TO
! guard the dykes. Bundles of millet
| stalks are used to strengthen them on
| the windward sides when the waves
| are nounding them. The picture pre-
| scented today to the visitor in Egypt is
a real life reproduction of the pictures
| of dyke guarding carved upon monu-
ments dating back to Rameses the
| Great
The well-to-do farmer in Egypt Is
| described as "a man VINO rldes
horse" His poorer neighbor is content
to ride a donkey the size of western
burro or to walk. Produce is sent 20
market in great panniers slung across
the back of a camel or smaller ones on
a donkey, A camel laden with dark
green Egyptian clover or donkey
hearing what seems to be huge orna-
mental wreath of caulifiower, Is pic
turesque sight in the streets or an
Egyptian city. Formerly the FARMER
never expected to save competency
There was no encouragement TO at
tempt to do so, because as soon as it
became known or suspected that he
had a little money in his hut, tax col
lector would appear. armed with
whip. and fog him until he should
give II up. This custom was still IN
effect when farmers in the American
west, who had homesteaded virgin
prairie land were beginning to send
their sons to colleges and their daugh-
ters to fashionable boarding schools.
or to travel in Europe to finish their
educations.
While reforms in government will
result in a great Improvement in the
welfare of the Egyptian farmer the
| limited area of arabic Egypt and the
destiny of population will prevent the
average farm from becoming the large
establishment common in agricultural
A EpUnf
about twice as large as Texas. But
tillable Egypt is about one-fourth as
large as Kentucky. If the entire popu-
lation of the United States We're
massed in Nevada that state would be
as densely peopled as the Nile val
ley. The best farming land in Egypt
sells for no more in dollars and cents
than good land in America. 1t is
relatively higher because dollars and
cents are difficult TO acquire where
working man tolls ten days for a dol
| lar.
Because of the misgovernment OF
Ismail Pasha. effects of which must be
very gradually removed. the public
debt per capita is about five times as
! large as that of the United states i'm
actual figures The relatively small
earning capacity per capita Of course
makes the real difference very much
greater. The. grandchildren of Egyp-
tan farmers of the present generation
will stagger under a. part of this bur-
den. But there is at least daylight
ahead under a civilized form of gov
eminent, which aims at the gradual
reduction of taxes
Egypt is without farm houses, in the
American sense of the term. Most of
the wealthy landowners live in the
larger cities. The small farmers live
in villages composed chiefly of two
classes of dwellings, squalid mud huts
and more squalid mud huts. There are
also few tents that resemble the tents
of Abraham. Another style of resi-
dence is the round "tepee," which
modern enterprise has recently intro
duced. While the "tepee' is fast dis
appearing from the plains of the
American west. it is an innovation in
Egypt. A group of these tents In the
middle distance, with group of pyra-
mids on the horizon, looks like a pic
ture of North American Indian life
superimposed upon an Egyptian land
scape
The poorest negro farmer in one of
the southern states lives in log cab
in or "box' house that is model of
luxury compared to the domicile of
millions of Egyptians. The average
farm house in America would be called
palace by the Egyptian. And Nile
land, which was under cultivation
six or seven thousand years before the
discovery of America, is so rich that
sixty or seventy CENTURIES of cultiva-
ton has not depleted it.
Copyright. 1909. by Frederic J. Haskin)
Tomorrow-Twentieth Century Egypt.
XI-Cairo as a Social Center.