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.