Desert Colour On the subject of farming high commendation of
the sketchy methods of the Bedouins has reached me from one of our greatest botanists who in spite of many scores of years has been investigating the flora of North Africa from a base near El Alamein. He says that "for density and sheer beauty of changing pattern and colour the spectacle (near Mariut) exceeded any comparable experience," and this is a "consequence of the care-free agricultural methods of the Bedouins who pass a plough lightly over most of its surface and broadcast their barley seed without further cultivation. These methods promote the weeds which are our flora." There was no such display two thousand years ago when the district was famed for its cereals, olives and vines. From a visit to Palestine one of my strongest recollections is of the carpet of caronari3 anemones (the lily of the Bible) and North Africa seems to have a yet vaster carpet of these, of greater variety. The desert can flourish as the rose, in several aspects.
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