— 160 — attending the use of farmyard manure and wood ashes, and has even evolved an indefinite rotation of crops as a means of obviating soil-exhaustion. His life, moreover, has in the past been one of excessive toil and hard living, and the prospect of a lightening of the customary burden is fully appreciated and serves as a stimulus to immediate effort. By dint of sustained effort he has previously raised a bare livelihood for himself and family and food for the sakia bulls.

The realisation of a first profit under the new system has been followed by an enquiry for local schools, better implements and the possibility of a further extension of the irrigation area.

Organisation.—Eegarded as a system of co-operation between the Government and the freeholder of sakia land, the general aspects of organisation have been discussed in an introductory Report. For various reasons a unit area of 1,000 feddans has been determined as offering possibihties of the greatest economy, when associated with others of a series under common supervision and management. A capital charge not exceeding £E.2.400 per feddan has been sustained in connection with the purchase and installation of the pumping plant, headworks, preliminary survey, bridges, modules, weir-gauges and other incidental expenses, while an irrigation contract, based on the security of the freehold title to the sakia, covers the payment of a water rate of 250 milliemes for a minimum of twelve waterings per annum.

It remains to describe in some detail the actual organisation of the work, irrigation practice and the preliminary results obtained.

Canalisation.—While the Government has, in the case of the experiment under discussion, accepted responsibility for the provision of plant and headworks, it has been decided that the cost of main and subsidiary canals shall be borne by the cultivators. Main canals have been constructed by the farm staff with loan funds constituting a charge on the first crops, and particulars of their cost and efficiency are of interest. The topography of the river banks affords an irrigable area sloping back from the flood bank with an average width of about half a mile. The main canal consequently parallels the bank and delivers water to distributory canals at right angles to the former.

For the irrigation of an initial area of 500 feddans a main canal has been constructed with a length of 2,650 metres, a fall of 1 : 2,500, a bottom section of 45 cm., and a top section of 205 cm. An economy in section has been effected by placing the pumping station in a central site and employing a double-ended canal. The costs of construction have varied with the relative amounts of " cut " and " fill " ; thus, 2,000 metres following a fairly uniform natural slope were excavated as " cut and fill " at a total cost of £E.56.645, or at a cost of 28.-3 milliemes per running metre, including labour, implements and hire of ploughs and cattle. A second section necessitating a raised canal for a considerable