Plate VI.
NASBAH MITERTARIS.
The upper bridge at Lahûn has hitherto been closed by vertical needles, but in 1892 it has been altered, and will in future be regulated by horizontal planks. The openings have also all been made one width, namely, 3 metres.
Crops.—The area on which land tax was paid in 1891 was
| Ushuri lands | 131,155 | feddans. |
| Kharagi „ | 102,146 | „ |
| Total | 233,301 | „ |
The total amount received into the Government treasury on this area was L.E. 132,668, which gives an average of 57 piastres a feddan, or 11s. 2¾d. an acre.
The actually cultivated area of the Fayûm is said to be about 280,000 feddans. Almost the whole of this area is under crop during the flood season and winter, and about 50,000 to 60,000 feddans are planted with summer crops, chiefly cotton.
If cotton is grown, it is followed by a winter crop of wheat, clover, or beans, and this is followed by a flood crop of millet. The cotton is sown in March of one year, and the flood millet is harvested in November of the following year, so that three crops are obtained in twenty months. After the flood millet, clover will be sown, and this will be cleared off the ground in time to plant cotton, which will be picked and finished with in October. This makes five crops in thirty-one months. I believe that sometimes even this record is beaten, and three crops are got out of fifteen months.
Everything which is sent out of the Fayûm, with the exception of an insignificant quantity which is carried out by camels, is shown in the railway books, from which the following figures, in kantars, have been obtained. (A kantar = 98·09 lbs.)