Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker.

Date:
1885-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    95/628 (page 71)
    the late summer or early autumn of the European year. The land is extremely fertile, hut it is not so incapable of exhaustion as it is sometimes represented to he. Many of the crops, as elsewhere, must occasionally he followed by a fallow' period; others thrive only when a certain rotation is observed (such as wheat, followed by clover and beans); and some fields require to be artificially manured. Occa- sionally two crops are yielded by the same field in the same season (wheat and saffron, wheat and clover, etc. J. The recent great extension of the cultivation of the sugar-cane, which requires a great deal of moisture, and of the cotton-plant, which requires extremely little, has necessitated considerable modifications in the modes of irrigation and cultivation hitherto in use. As both of these crops are of a very exhausting character, the land must either be more frequently left fallow, or must be artificially manured. The industry and powers of endurance of the Egyptian peasantry are thus most severely tried, and no imported agricultural labourers could ever hope to compete with them, as has sometimes been thought possible. Although the homogeneous soil of the valley of the Nile breaks up of its own accord after its irrigation, and requires less careful tilling and ploughing than ours, it exacts more uni- form attention throughout the whole year, while its irrigation involves a great additional amount of labour to which the European farmer is quite unaccustomed. The increasing use of artificial manures, which were formerly but little known, is another source of great labour. As the country is thickly peopled and supports numerous cattle, there ought to be no lack of natural manure; but, as the dung of the domestic animals is used as fuel throughout Egypt, where wood is very scarce, that of pigeons (p. 79) is almost the only kind available for agricultural purposes. An abundant source of manure is afforded by the ruins of ancient towns, which were once built of unbaked clay, but now consist of mounds of earth, recognisable only as masses of ruins by the fragments of pottery they contain. Out of these mounds, which conceal the rubbish of thou- sands of years, is dug a kind of earth sometimes containing as much as 12 per cent of saltpetre, soda, ammonia, and other salts. This manure possesses extremely fertilising properties, but if used at the wrong time or place is very injurious to the soil. II. Irrigation. The whole of the cultivable soil of Egypt is divided into two classes in accordance with its relative height above the surface of the Nile : (1) The '■Rat', or fields which retain their moisture after the subsidence of the overflow long enough (or nearly long enough) to admit of the ripening of the crop without additional irrigation; (2) The lShardki\ or those which always require artificial irrigation. The irrigation is effected by means of: (1) The lSdkiyeh\ or large wheels (rarely exceeding 30 ft. in dia- meter), turned by domestic animals of various kinds, and fitted with scoops of wood or clay, resembling a dredging-machine. (In the