We now proceed to a technical statement of the treatment of an Egyptian farm; not merely a description of farming in Egypt, but of the management of a farm based upon the careful observations of one who has passed many years in the Delta and has made the cultivation and cropping of its peculiar soil a thorough life study. In fact, the tracts of land under his superintendence offer themselves as specimens worthy of copying by all who seek to make the land of Egypt profitable and well paying in return for the capital, large or small, that may be invested there. This being said, we at once plunge again in medias res, and, at the risk of being too formal and technical, recapitulate the crops in their order. Cotton.
Followed by Clover, or Beans, or both.
Followed by Fallow, or catch crops of Maize or Water Melons.
Wheat and Barley.
Followed by three months’ fallow, or Maize, main crop, and catch crop of Sesame. Clover—“Fachl” on land after Maize and Clover “Miscowy” after Fallow. Then Cotton.
Chapter Seventeen.
We will take an estate of three hundred acres, and on inspection, say in the month of March, the crops occupying the land under the following rotation will be as under:—
Three Years’ Rotation. March.