wned by foreigners. The
policy of the government is to maintain the small proprietors, and to do
nothing tending to oust the native in favour of European landowners.

The kind of crops cultivated depends largely on whether the land is
under perennial, flood or "basin" irrigation. Perennial irrigation is
possible where there are canals which can be supplied with water all the
year round from the Nile. This condition exists throughout the Delta and
Middle Egypt, but only in parts of Upper Egypt. Altogether some
4,000,000 acres are under perennial irrigation. In these regions two and
sometimes three crops can be harvested yearly. In places where perennial
irrigation is impossible, the land is divided by rectangular dikes into
"basins." Into these basins--which vary in area from 600 to 50,000
acres--water is led by shallow canals when the Nile is in flood. The
water is let in about the middle of August and the basins are begun to
be emptied about the 1st of October. The land under basin irrigation
covers about 1,750,000 acres. In the basins only one crop can be grown
in the year. This basin system is of immemorial use in Egypt, and it was
not until the time of Mehemet Ali (c. 1820) that perennial irrigation
began. High land near the banks of the Nile which cannot be reached by
canals is irrigated by raising water from the Nile by steam-pumps,
water-wheels (_sakias_) worked by buffaloes, or water-lifts (_shadufs_)
worked by hand. There are several thousand steam-pumps and over 100,000
_sakias_ or _shadufs_ in Egypt. The _fellah_ divides his land into
little square plots by ridges of earth, and from the small canal which
serves his holding he lets the water into each plot as needed. The same
system obtains on large estates (see further IRRIGATION: _Egypt_).
There are three agricultural seasons: (1) summer (_sefi_), 1st of April
to 31st of July, when crops are grown only on land under perennial
irrigation; (2) flood (_Nili_), 1st of August to 30th of November; and
(3) winter (_shetwi_), 1st of December to 31st of March. Cotton, sugar
and rice are the chief summer crops; wheat, barley, flax and vegetables
are chiefly winter crops; maize, millet and "flood" rice are _Nili_
crops; millet and vegetables are also, but in a less degree, summer
crops. The approximate areas under cultivation in the various seasons
are, in summer, 2,050,000 acres; in flood, 1,500,000 acres; in winter,
4,300,000 acres. The double-cropped area is over 2,0