Show i Twentieth Century Egypt EgyptI I X Farming In BY J 1 HASKIN I Cairo An axiom of agricultural al America to Is J that a look at the land is isa Isa isa a key to the welfare of the tillers of the sell If the dirt is rich its productivity lit Is i always reflected In the prosperity of the farming community This la is not true truo trout of t Egypt The soil of or the Nile valley has liberally to every tickling of tile hoe Ioe for seventy centuries yet the ibe vast majority rn of ot those thoR who farm tarm its fertile ferUle acres today live in mud nuts The explanation lies partly part In the t fact that the population of or has always been n dense but in ina Ina ina a measure the t condition of the Egyptian farmer Is ig due to his having been oppressed by despotic rulers and unequal taxation since prehistoric times Sing enough the reign of Ismail Ismall Pasha who reduced the fellaheen to the great greatest set est extreme of or poverty opened the way for the ultimate deliverance of the tian Uan farmer from everlasting bondage In a purely agricultural country it is i difficult for bed bad government to bring bout about ruin to people as long as all the tyrant is unable usable to raise rat funds save ve by extort extorting extortIng ing leg money from froni his subjects en op oppression oppression intolerable there is a I change of ot government and aDd quick recovery recover ii It was when Ismail l lD Il Pasha learned how to Borrow money ney In Europe upon his coun I 1 O 0 U that collapse eolla resulted and the people found round themselves under undera a debt which their descendants must pay i But hut for years before malls reign bad government had always alway made the I farmers the bearers bearer of the financial bur burdens burdens dens of Egypt and slaves slave to a system of graft beginning with the headmen of ot villages and extending to the tM throne To Today Today 1 day the English point with pride to the fact that the fellah approaches the dawn i lift IdI of a batter better day Formerly the Egyptian farmer was flogged with the when he protested against paying ruinous taxes part p rt of or which the tax collector stole anti ana the rest reel of which went to the Even so recent a ruler as alf small Ismail J used the whenever h he needed money mony I The farmer fanner was also atH driven by the whip to labor upon public works work or till Ull crown lands or the lands landa of court favorites without pay Nowadays taxes are levied as they the are in European countries and the system of graft Is obsolete All that thatis is left of the corne the system of en enforced enforced forced labor is la that the fellaheen must guard suard their dykes during the season Of or inundation The introduction of peren perennial perennial nial Dial Irrigation has JIu greatly reduced the need of or labor on the dykes dyk It In It believed bell ved that within a few years it w will not oot be necessary emery essary essar to call out the lOr except In seasons sea of oL exceptionally high Nile ille In toI 1001 for the first time in the history of the country no was called out north of Cairo But flut up to the present time Ume the benefIts I that have accrued to the Egyptians have hae not visibly affected the nature of farm farmIng farmIng Ing log operations While there are excell exceptions lions to the rule the Egyptian farmers methods are the same sa today that they were during durin the first dynasty Looking upon the Ute remarkably preserved feature features of ot a Rame es or a Sei Seii in the national museum in Cairo it is difficult to tu realize that toot thousands ands of years have passed pa d since siom sm e eUte the Ute mummies of these thele kings were wrap wrapped wrapped ped Looking from a car ear window at the Nile NI valley alle farmer growing his crops crone U it UIs itis 11 Is more difficult to realize th that t title tide is the thu twentieth century and that mat he is If cultivating cultivating cultivating land that grows from two to tour four crops a year Along the canals canall that convey cone water from the Nile to the farms farina there are seen the same seIDe devices for lifting water that were wore in use ue when the earliest monuments of ot Egypt ft were ere The T Is la a contrivance consisting of or a pole which rests rest upon a pivot with a bucket at one end and hod nd a weight at the other The man manat manat manat at the dips water ater from the ca ea canal canal nal Rill bucketful buck ful b bj bucketful tipping Upping the bucket above bo a smaller canal Minai fifteen feet above the level of the larger one lie He works for ten cents a day two plasters in Egyptian money mo y and never goes gO on a astrike strike higher wages lie He seldom miss Cs s a Ii days work and rarely proves unreliable unreliable unreliable liable In any way wa From countless gen geli generations of af oppressed ed ancestors he in inherits henits humbleness h and habits of or hard labor He lIe lifts some 1030 1000 tons of water during the thc dry season When Vilen the weather Is warm he wears nothing more than a loin cloth and his wardrobe is not notI I I expensive at any an season He and his I family live upon what the average Am American working man would spend for to tobacco bacce bacco Another nother apparatus for lifting water ater to the fields ie Is the sere screw of Archimedes The name suggests its It ancient origin It ItIs ItIs Itis Is a wooden tube with a spiral flange in inside InIde inside side Ide Turned with a crank ank it 1 brings a stream of water to a level about two feet higher than its lower end amid The he more prosperous farmers employ water a er wheels The patient water burrah turning the water wheel without being driven is as dependable and almost as poorly fed ted as the fellah who works at the He too inherits the Instinct of or unceasing toll toil Sometimes two buffaloes or a bur buffalo buffalo falo and a camel are used to turn a wa w ter w wheel heel There are a few fe wealth wealthy land landowners landowners landowners owners for th the moet moat part lans lang who are using steam pumps pumpe but the farmers anners who employ modern methods or ot getting water from the Irrigation ditched are cre still sUIl a smelt email One advantage possessed pos by the Nile Nita NI valley valle farmer fanner is 18 that be he does not have uve to wait walt upon rain Like the man who cul cultivates cultivates cultivates the soil sell of the irrigated Southwest dou t he can count upon a certain quantity of products representing the net Mt result of ot soil and loUD tun and water ap an applied applied plied in the right quantity and at the right time But Rut during th tbt the period of 01 tile the greatest inundation the t tb Egyptian aa farmer must be upon his guard against storms Egypt at that time Is ie s a vast lake thinly veined with dykes dyke Myriads M of water waterfowl waterfowl waterfowl fowl make their home borne In lake aKe Ke while the farming people live upon mounds an am make the dykes their road roads Violent changes l i temperature in the desert doert d cause sudden windstorms in the valley An unprotected dyke may be washed away or the water encroaching upon a village e may ma cause the mud huts to crumble Each village headman is un under den der the responsibility of or calling out hi his tallow fellow tel low villagers at the right time to guard the dykes Bundles BuRdI or mUlct millet stalks are used to strengthen them on the wind windward windward windward ward side chic when the waves are aPe pounding them The picture presented today to the visitor in is S a real life lIf reproduction of the pictures of dyke guarding carved upon monuments dating back to the Ute Great CreaL The farmer in Egypt Is I de described described scribed an as a man who rides a horse His this poorer neighbor is content to ride a donkey the size sise of a western burro or to walk Produce is sent to maraer in m great panniers pannieR slung across the bark back of a camel or em smaller Iler ones on a donkey A camel laden with dark green een Egyptian clover or a donkey hearing bearing what seems to be a huge buse ornamental wreath of cauli cauliflower flower to Is a picturesque sight eight in the toe streets of an Egyptian city Formerly the farmer never expected to save eave a competency y There was wae no encouragement to attempt to do 10 so 50 IO belaus as soon loon RB as A it became known or suspected that he be had a IL little money mone In his hut a tax collector r would i appear armed with kh a whip ami flog him until he ht should give it up This custom was still in effect when hen farmers farm rs in tiu III Am W It who had homestead d virgin prairie land were beginning to send lend their sons lIOns to colleges college colle and their daughters daughter to fashionable boarding schools or to travel In Europe to finish their educations While hUe hiie reforms in government will re me suit in a great improvement In the th wel welfare welfare welfare fare of the Egyptian farmer the limited area of arable Eg pt and density t of uC pop pod population po will prevent the average farm from becoming the large establishment i In agricultural America Upon the map Egypt is III about twice as u large targe as u Texas But tillable Egypt is I about as large as all Kentucky If the entire pop population population of or the t States State were massed in Nevada that state would be as densely peopled as all the Nile XUI valley all aU The best farming fanning land tand in Egypt Ept sells for no more morein moreIn morein in dollars and cents than good land In America It is relatively higher because dollars dollar and cents are difficult to acquire a where a wo working king man tolls ten tell days for a adol dollar dol r Because of the mi misgovernment go or of Ismail lenin Pasha effect ff tt of which must be very gradually removed the t public pubic debt per capita is about five time tImes ae as large e as IU that ot of the United tn ted States la III actual act n fI The relatively small earning capacity per capita of course makes the real differ difference difference difference ence ver very ven much greeter tr The grand grandchildren grandchildren grandchildren children of Egyptian farmers far of the pres present ent eat generation will stagger under a part of this burden But there is 18 at least day daylight daylight daylight light ahead under a form of or gov gor government 0 which alms alma at the gradual reduction reduction tion Uon of taxes Egypt is I without farm fann houses In the American sense of the te t term Host Koet of the wealthy landowners live in the larger cities The small farmers live Uve in villages vinaS composed chiefly of two classes cl of o dwell dwelling dwellIng ing loge squalid mud huts and more squalid mud huts There are also a few tents tenia that resemble re emble the tents of Abraham An Another Another Another other style atle of ef residence la is the Ute round twin tepee which modern enterprise has US re recently recently Introduced While the tM tepee tell I me IS fast fut disappearing dl from the plains of the tM American west it is an innovation in Egypt A group of these tents in the mid middle middie middie die dle distance with a group of o pyramids on the horizon looks like a picture of or North American Indian life superimposed upon an Egyptian landscape The poorest negro farmer in one of ot the southern states lives in a log loa or box house that Is IB a mOot mod hi si of luxury compared compa to the domicile of millions of Egyptians The average farm fann house bouee In America would be bt called a palace pala By uy till the Egyptians And which was Willi un on under under onder der cultivation six or seven thousand nd years before the discovery of America A is isso isso so 80 rich that sixty or seventy centuries ce ot of cultivation has not depleted it Copyright 1090 rollO by b Frederick J Hukill Tomorrow Twentieth Century Egypt XI Cairo as a 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