Chapter Eighteen.
It will be interesting to add a few remarks on a system of cultivation which is practised on tracts adjoining the Desert. The land has been purchased at a price of, say, 17 pounds per acre, and the next proceeding has been to level it—by the free use of the Cassabia, or scraper, which, in roughest preparation, is drawn over and over the sand and guided something after the fashion of a plough—and then bringing it into communication by canalising with the nearest distributor of the Nile water, while in this country of exceedingly cheap labour the cost of these preparations for cultivation may be set down at about 10 pounds per acre.
This done, the purchaser has the option of carrying on the cultivation himself, or letting it to the fellaheen, who will take it readily and pay a rent of 4 pounds per acre or feddan.
The fellah now crops his land as follows, and the reader will notice the variation in the products the native causes his fields to bring forth.
He begins with:
Earth Nuts (Arachidis).—Sown from April 1st till July 1st. Duration of crops, six months. Water every five days till high Nile, when no water is required. Yield per acre, sixty bushels, value 10 pounds.
Sesame.—Yield, fifteen bushels; value, 7 pounds.
Chick Peas.—Sown from April 1st to July 1st. Duration of crop, six months. Yield per acre, thirty bushels; value, 6 pounds.
Maize (Oswego).—Sown March 15th till April 15th. Duration of crop, seven months; value of crop, 9 pounds.
Potatoes.—First crop planted October. Duration, three and a half months. Yield, three and a half tons; 17 pounds 10 shillings.
Potatoes.—Second crop planted February 15th. Duration, three months. Yield, three and a half tons; 17 pounds 10 shillings.
Lupins.—Sown November 1st. Duration of crop, seven months. Average yield, fifteen bushels; 2 pounds 8 shillings.
Clover, barley, beans, Syrian maize, and henna, a dye plant.
To begin with, the land is here generally pure sand, but after flooding with Nile water, which is often available without pumping—i.e. free flow—the sand gets mixed with the Nile mud and a good soil is rapidly formed.
Sugar-Cane.—This, one of the most interesting products of the Eastern soil, beautiful in form, and attractive in every stage, from its early green growth through the tasselling, or flowering, up to the time when the swelling cobs are changing from their attractive green to golden yellow, amber, and brownish or purple black, is cultivated both in Upper and Lower Egypt. It is grown in two varieties, the native and the Greek, and the colour of the ripened canes forms a gradation, passing from light yellow through striped red and yellow, and red.
The cultivation is, as stated, principally carried on in Upper Egypt—for the manufacture of sugar. If it is planted in the Delta it is for sale to the natives, by whom it is consumed raw, and by sucking the juice. The farmer who plants his land with sugar-cane begins by thoroughly well preparing the soil, and ridges it as if he were about to plant potatoes, these ridges measuring about thirty inches from crest to crest.
The canes are cut into lengths of one yard, placed in the furrow, and covered with the soil. Planting commences in February, the ridges being watered immediately after, and the young shoots appear after twenty days. The crop is watered every fifteen days, and at longer intervals after the Nile has risen. The land is hand-hoed three times, and the cane should be ready for cutting in December and January. The value of an average crop sold standing—in Lower Egypt—may range from 20 to 25 pounds per acre. Then the trashings covering the ridges are burned, a watering given about the beginning of March, and the old roots sprout again, when there is a second crop, and again the following year by repeating, a third crop from the one planting. The third crop is not so profitable, as the roots become exhausted. The sugar-cane requires a liberal dressing of manure each year. The yield of trashed canes may run from six tons the first year, five tons the second year, and four tons the third year, and the percentage of sugar may be estimated from fourteen to fifteen per cent.