That delicious European fruit, the strawberry, by nature a dweller in cool and Alpine regions, was not known in Egypt till within forty years ago. Planted as an experiment by someone familiar with its qualities, it seems to have passed rather an unfavourable time in popular estimation; but it is now gradually gaining in favour, and the area under cultivation is steadily extending.
The fruit is ripe in November, and finds a ready sale at tenpence per pound; while, if the cultivation is good and well-managed, the return to the planter may be reckoned at forty pounds for the produce of an acre.
To an Englishman familiar with the strawberry and its growth, one knowing the botanical character of the plant and the love of its roots for a rich clay land, it seems surprising that it should flourish so well in the sandy soil of Egypt. But, of course, this is explained by the yearly deposit of rich silt, or warp, the result of the annual floods.
Fortunately for the grower, he is not troubled as in England by woodland birds, the Eastern crops suffering very little from their ravages, while the plant enjoys almost an immunity from the attacks of insect plagues.
In the goodly list of luscious fruits we now come to figs--not the overgrown, sickly fruit that only ripens under very favourable circumstances in England, but the rich saccharine bag of embedded seed that we know best in its dried and pressed form as the common fig.
Its cultivation is spread over the whole Delta and the Fayoum, where its milky, succulent stems and dark green leaves flourish thoroughly well. The trees, as a rule, grow to a height of nine or ten feet, are well branched, and find great favour with the native gardener, for they possess the admirable qualities of requiring not much attention, very little manure, and no pruning. Joined to this, the trees are very prolific, and the luscious fruit finds great favour with the people.
Another popular fruit which grows without much attention save irrigating, and that to a very moderate degree, is the prickly pear.
Here in England the melon is looked upon as a delicacy. Gardeners vie one with the other in its production, and seedsmen push forward this fashionable fruit by advertising their own special specimens of prize kinds, and these may be almost classed as legion.