FARMING IN EGYPT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 38, 13 January 1944, Page 4

FARMING IN EGYPT

MUSEUM OF. AGRICULTURE SOLDIERi^INTEREST The manner in which soldiers from the farming centres of New Zealand are persuaded to keep in touch with their industry by learning of farming practice in other places isi discussed by Private Maurice Huddleston, of Glen Oroua, who is on service in the Middle East, in the course of a letter to Mr B. J. Lancaster, also of Glen Oroua. Private Huddleston as well interestingly describes a visit he made to the Egyptian Museum of Agriculture. t "There is a Farmers' Association meeting once a week in our camp," he savs, "and we have some very interesting meetings. There was an attendance of about fifty at the last gathering and the speaker was the Sub-Director of Agricultural Research in Egypt. He gave us a very enlightening and instructive address on both the primitive method ot farming which is in vogue in Egypt and the possibilities of advanced modern methods which are gradually being brought about through Government research and experimental farms. Under their present system, of course, the farmer himself is a very poor man, and as many as five people arc known to live off two acres. The income of the average farmer is about £3B a year, winch has to he divided between himself and the owner. If the farmer pays costs he gets half the income, and if the owner pays costs the farmer receives only one-third of the income. On the farms around Cairo the old wooden plough only is used for turning the furrow and the common cow pulls the plough. Being bred for haulage work her production of milk is not high and the buffalo is u'/'.'d almost entirely lor the dairv industry, there being about one million buffalo cows in Egypt. However, I understand that modern machinery is in use in a more general way down the river and, according to 'what I saw in the Egyptian Museum of Agriculture, every article of modern agricultural machinery is in common use. AT THE MUSEUM. "With Private C. Hunt, of Glen Oroua, I spent a very interesting day at the Museum. There was on display every industry of Egypt showing each stage of processing from the sowing of the seed to the finished article. Human beings at work, animals, machinery, factories, crops and irrigation systems were all modelled as to appear real. Even poultry, bees, and insects were preserved and displayed in such a manner as to appear natural. There were displays of every type of soil, rock, and sand to be found in Egypt, giving the analysed mineral content of each. Practically no limo is used here as the soil ia of an alkaline nature. The cotton industry was shown in detail from the plant to the finished article of clothing. The sugar, wine, wheat, and fruit industries were modelled in full detail from beginning to end. There was also a display of modern medical science, veterinary science, and also a detailed demonstration of the methods of modern meteorology. To be quite frank, the four hours available to rush round the whole exhibition were entirelv insufficient to absorb all that, we? displayed. One could easily spend two or three days seeing the display properly."