1,800,000 acres, and
nine-tenths of it is in the Nile Delta. The delta soil is typically a
heavy, black, alluvial clay, very fertile, but difficult to work;
admixture of sand is beneficial, and the localities where this occurs
yield the best cotton. Formerly in Egypt the cotton was treated as a
perennial, but this practice has been generally abandoned, and fresh
plants are raised from seed each year, as in America; one great
advantage is that more than one crop can thus be obtained each year. The
following rotation is frequently adopted. It should be noted that in
Egypt the year is divided into three seasons--winter, summer and "Nili."
The two first explain themselves; Nili is the season in which the Nile
overflows its banks.

+----------------+---------------+-----------+---------------+
| | Winter. | Summer. | Nili. |
| +---------------+-----------+---------------+
| First year |Clover | Cotton | .. |
| Second year |Beans or wheat | .. |Corn or fallow |
+----------------+---------------+-----------+---------------+

For cotton cultivation the land is ploughed, carefully levelled, and
then thrown up into ridges about 3 ft. apart. Channels formed at right
angles to the cultivation ridges provide for the access of water to the
crop. The seeds, previously soaked, are sown, usually in March, on the
sides of the ridges, and the land watered. After the seedlings appear,
thinning is completed in usually three successive hoeings, the plants
being watered after thinning, and subsequently at intervals of from
twelve to fifteen days, until about the end of August when picking
commences. The total amount of water given is approximately equivalent
to a rainfall of about 35 in. The crop is picked, ginned and baled in
the usual way, the Macarthy style action roller gins being almost
exclusively employed.

_Cotton Seed._--The history of no agricultural product contains more of
interest and instruction for the student of economics than does that of
cotton seed in the United States. The revolution in its treatment is a
real romance of industry. Up till 1870 or thereabouts, cotton seed was
regarded as a positive nuisance upon the American plantation. It was
left to accumulate in vast heaps about ginhouses, to the annoyance of
the farmer and the injury of his premises. Cotton seed in those days was
the object of so much aversion that the plan