- 104 -The highest, and this project necessitates modifying the course of the Bahr el-Jebel and Bahr el-Zeraf and repairing their banks. It has been clearly proven, as presented, that cotton and horned reed plants thrive in the Gezira plain, whose cultivable area is 750,000 feddans, and can be cultivated relying on floodwater and in the winter season without causing any harm to the Egyptian province. And under consideration now is the construction of a dam costing half a million pounds or three-quarters of a million pounds, which requires the construction of barrages on the White Nile near its confluence with the Blue Nile. These barrages may connect Khartoum to Omdurman. This dam will meet the shortage of water needed for irrigating the Gezira and will greatly increase the summer irrigation water in the Egyptian province. Among its benefits is also the control of floodwater in the months of September and October, which will benefit the basins of Upper Egypt and irrigate vast lands in the Kordofan province on the White Nile by flood irrigation. It is most likely that this project will be an inseparable part of the Gezira project, so the work on both projects will proceed together. They have found a suitable location for a dam at Sennar and estimated the cost of the works necessary for irrigating 500,000 feddans of Gezira land at about 300,000 pounds, and the duration required for it ranges between ten and fifteen years. These works will facilitate the railway between Sennar and Gedaref to cross the Nile. It appears from the research that 200,000 feddans located between the Dinder and Rahad rivers can be irrigated by flood irrigation from the Rahad at an estimated cost of about two pounds per feddan. It is possible to increase the cultivated lands in Khor Baraka by 50 percent, its area being 600,000 feddans, by allocating about 80,000 pounds for irrigation works to control the Khor's flood. And once a complete railway is built, industrial irrigation from the Fash river can be expanded to include 100,000 feddans at an input cost of two pounds per feddan. The responsibility for the Fash irrigation works has been transferred from the Egyptian budget to the Sudanese budget. The irrigation was precise due to the rapid rise and fall of the flood, but the result was good, and 120,000 feddans can be made arable at a cost not exceeding two pounds per feddan.

12 – Forests The consumption of firewood in El-Obeid, an area of 25 square miles, has led to the depletion of the forest area.