118 ( No. 88 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS lower than that reachedby the river in its annual rise, receive in one heavy flooding sufficient moisture to mature a grain crop. Where canal irrigation is carried out the date palm is prominent,and most native holdings have a considerable number of trees, from which excellent returns are obtained, and beneath which grain and fodder crops and vegetables are grown. Basin irrigation on anything like a large scale is confined to the Dongola province. Here wheat is the principal crop , but some barley and green fodder are also cultivated.

The Gezira zone comprises the great plainbetween the White and Blue Niles, consisting of alluvial deposit (“ cotton soil”) instead of the dry sand so universally encountered in the country north of Khartum . In making this region productive nature wouldappear to have accomplished one-half ofman's work for him by levelling millions of acres which , in the near future, when, by man's ingenuity and labour, water for irriga tion purposes is forthcoming, will become white with cotton. It is in connection with this locality that the Government are maturing irrigation schemes upon which great hopes are based . The Gezira, in fact, admittedly holds out as fine prospects for cotton grow ing as any locality within the British Empire (see also 1 p. 102).

from year The southern zone comprises that portion of the Sudan south of about 12° north latitude, where approxi mately North African and Saharan conditions give place to a region of abundant rains, upon which all agricultural effort depends. Variations in the amount and distribution of the rainfall being very considerable to year, the cultivator of the soil has little sense of security , and consequently small encourage ment to adopt intensive methods of farming. Never theless , owing to the almost universal fertility of the soil, surprisingly rich crops are obtained.

In the Red Sea and Kassala zone irrigation depends upon the overflow of the Khor Baraka when in flocd .

This river, rising in the highlands of Eritrea, comes