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Show HORRIFIED AT LAZINESS. This country is getting to bo a noteworthy note-worthy resort for all' people who want information nbout agricnluture. Now Zealand comes to us to find out about irrigation. The Filipinos come to us to learn how to raiso rice although they have been raising it in their way for centuries. From all over the world wo have visitors official and non-official, non-official, to learn of our ways. Tho famo of American products has spread all over the earth, and the wise men of all nations come to see and to learn. The latest visitor to make himself hoard is Abaza Bey of Cairo, Secretary Secre-tary of- Agriculture in Egypt. It hns been the dream of Egyptian agriculturists agricul-turists for decades to raise good, marketable mar-ketable cotton. Egyptian coltou is coarscr-fiborod than American, and no matter how much is raised, there is still a demand for American cotton to make acceptable fabrics. Recently it was announced that over-irrigation in Egypt had brought serious trouble to the cotton crop, and so Abaza Bey camo to find out how Americans raise cotton. He visited the cotton fields of tho lower Mississippi, but the thing that struck him most forcibly was the laziness of the negroes. He was shocked at seeing a negro field hand taking a nap in tho field in the middle of tho afternoon. lie expostulated, and' said, that sort' of thing would not do at all. Tn his country, he said, if he saw a- field hand sleeping at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, he would be justified jus-tified in shooting him. This was probably prob-ably an- exaggeration; but still, the memory of that field-hand sleeping in tho cotton field in the middle of the afternoon is evidently what will linger longest in the mind of Abaza Bey. He insists that Egypt is the most progressive progres-sive country in the world, though tho population . there has decreased in tho last three decades from thirty million to twelve million. He holds that next to Egypt, tho most progressive country is Belgium. As io America, he reiterated re-iterated that the trouble with our agriculture ag-riculture is laziness; he says, "you must work all the time, and not expect ex-pect to plant seed and wait for the time to pick the cotton. There must be no sleeping at .'! o'clock in the day lime." Abaza Bey is evidently a protty hard taskmaster. The fellaheen of Egypt have been used to ages of oppression. The taskmasters of Egypt ever since the sojourn iu Egypt of the children of Israel have been noted as hard and ox-acting ox-acting beyond compare, and cruelly fierce; and it does not seem that the lot of the laborer has much intproved in the thousands of vears. But when an Egyptian taskmaster will come to America and say that in Egypt he would be justified in shooting a laborer if he found him asleep at 3 o'clock In the afternoon, wc can imagine the hard line3 of an Egyptian laborer; and wo do not believe that a man like that will be able to gain much information of use to him by his visit to America, nnd to tho American cotton fields. |
