FACADE OF A HOUSE TOWARD THE STREET. SECOND THEBAN PERIOD.
[1] Erman: Life in Ancient Egypt, 235.
[2] Erman: Life in Ancient Egypt, 255.
CHAPTER XI.
Agriculture and Cattle Raising.
Owing to the inexhaustible fertility of the Nile valley, fine crops were always forthcoming on the land reached by the annual overflow. The rich mud deposited by the flood left the productive qualities of the soil restored, and it was never necessary to leave the fields lie fallow. However, the ground had not only to be merely reached by the river waters, but to be saturated, for rain seldom fell and whatever humidity was supplied the growing vegetation, came from the overflow. A system of irrigation brought the water in trenches as near each farm as possible. From these trenches, thousands of men and boys, employed throughout the country, lifted water in buckets to the higher land, that all the crops might receive sufficient moisture.
As soon as the river receded, all the valley was astir with busy people, getting the ground ready for the grain and other seed. Implements of the farm were crude indeed, and crude they are today. A high official in recent times had a quantity of agricultural implements, such as are used by the most progressive farmers in America, imported into Egypt and endeavored to encourage the peasants to use them. Not they. What had served the needs of seven thousand years in their valley was deemed sufficient for them, and after some time, the entire outfit had to be sold for old iron.