Professional Documents
Culture Documents
T H E NAT U R E O F E M OT I O N
ii
Series Editors
Richard J. Davidson
Paul Ekman
Klaus Scherer
SECOND EDITION
T H E NAT U R E O F E M OT I O N
Fundamental Questions
EDITED BY
A N D R E W S . F OX
R E G I NA C. L A PAT E
A L E X A N D E R J. S H AC K M A N
and
R I C H A R D J. DAV I D S O N
3
iv
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
CONTENTS
viii Contents
4.1 Studying the brain is necessary for 5.7 The brain is organized to emote 118
understanding emotion 77 Andrew S. Fox
Tom Johnstone 5.8 Neural circuit mechanisms for
4.2 Brain and emotion research: switching emotional tracks: From
Contributions of patient and positive to negative and back again 122
activation studies 80 Kay M. Tye
Robert W. Levenson 5.9 Afterword 125
4.3 Understanding emotion by Alexander J. Shackman and
unraveling complex structure– Andrew S. Fox
function mappings 84
Luiz Pessoa
QUESTION 6: When and in what ways
4.4 Brain studies can advance are emotions adaptive and maladaptive? 129
psychological understanding 88
6.1 The ambiguous issue of adaptive
Kent C. Berridge emotions 129
4.5 Afterword 91 Jerome Kagan
Alexander J. Shackman and
Regina C. Lapate
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Contents ix
6.2 Maladaptive emotions are inseparable 7.7 Fighting fire with fire: Endogenous
from inaccurate appraisals 130 emotion generation as a means of
Phoebe C. Ellsworth emotion regulation 172
Haakon G. Engen and Tania Singer
6.3 Emotions aren’t maladaptive 132
Aaron S. Heller 7.8 Afterword 177
Alexander J. Shackman and
6.4 Cultural neuroscience of emotion 136
Regina C. Lapate
Joan Y. Chiao
6.5 Positive emotions broaden and
build: Consideration for how and
QUESTION 8: How do emotion and
when pleasant subjective experiences cognition interact? 181
are adaptive and maladaptive 140 8.1 The interplay of emotion and cognition 181
Barbara L. Fredrickson Hadas Okon-Singer, Daniel M. Stout,
6.6 The social nature of emotions: Melissa D. Stockbridge,
Context matters 143 Matthias Gamer, Andrew S. Fox, and
Alexander J. Shackman
Amy Lehrner and Rachel Yehuda
8.2 The impact of affect depends on its
6.7 Afterword 147
object 186
Andrew S. Fox and Regina C. Lapate
Gerald L. Clore
8.3 Thoughts on cognition–emotion
QUESTION 7: How are emotions interactions and their role in the
regulated by context and cognition? 151 diagnosis and treatment of
psychopathology 189
7.1 Emotion as an evolutionary adaptive
pattern: The roles of context and cognition 151 Keren Maoz and Yair Bar-Haim
D. Caroline Blanchard and 8.4 Beyond cognition and emotion:
Brandon L. Pearson Dispensing with a cherished
psychological narrative 192
7.2 Individual differences in fear
conditioning and extinction Alexandra Touroutoglou and
paradigms: Insights for emotion Lisa Feldman Barrett
regulation 154 8.5 Can we advance our understanding of
Marie-France Marin and emotional behavior by reconceptualizing
Mohammed R. Milad it as involving valuation? 196
7.3 The role of context and cognition in Roshan Cools, Hanneke den Ouden,
the placebo effect 158 Verena Ly, and Quentin Huys
Lauren Y. Atlas 8.6 Beyond the threat bias: Reciprocal
links between emotion and cognition 199
7.4 Emotional intensity: It’s the thought
that counts 162 Nick Berggren and Nazanin Derakshan
Gerald L. Clore and David A. Reinhard 8.7 The cognitive-emotional brain 202
x Contents
Contents xi
QUESTION 13: How are emotions inte- 14.4 Normative trajectories and sources
of psychopathology risk in adolescence 382
grated into choice? 335
Leah H. Somerville and
13.1 How can affect influence choice? 335 Katie A. McLaughlin
Brian Knutson and Mirre Stallen
14.5 What happens in emotional develop-
13.2 Emotions through the lens of ment? Adolescent emotionality 386
economic theory 338 Eveline A. Crone and Jennifer H. Pfeifer
Agnieszka Tymula and Paul Glimcher
14.6 Goals change with age and benefit
13.3 Emotions as computational signals of emotional experience 392
goal error 343 Candice Hogan, Tamara Sims, and
Luke J. Chang and Eshin Jolly Laura L. Carstensen
13.4 Affect is the foundation of value 348 14.7 Ideal ends in emotional development 396
Catherine Hartley and Carol D. Ryff
Peter Sokol-Hessner
14.8 Afterword 399
13.5 Emotion, value, and choice 352 Regina C. Lapate and
Jolie Wormwood and Alexander J. Shackman
Lisa Feldman Barrett
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xii Contents
AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S
We thank Paul Ekman for his support, advice, and San Francisco, and the University of Wisconsin–
contributions to both editions of The Nature of Madison as part of the National Institute of Mental
Emotion. Health–supported Training Program in Emotion
We gratefully acknowledge the invaluable as- Research (T32- MH018931) and the Wisconsin
sistance of Allegra Anderson, Andy DeClercq, Symposium on Emotion (co-Directed by Richard
Kathryn DeYoung, Laura Friedman, Samiha Islam, Davidson and Ned Kalin).
Susan Jensen, Gloria Kim, Jason Smith, Melissa Andrew Fox’s work is supported by the
Stockbridge, and Do Tromp. Joan Bossert, who California National Primate Center and University
served as editor of both editions of the book, pro- of California, Davis. Regina Lapate’s work is
vided support and guidance throughout the multi- supported by the National Institutes of Health
year project of writing and assembling the book. (MH113347). Alexander Shackman’s work is
We also want to acknowledge the seminal supported by the National Institutes of Health
contributions of our distinguished colleague and (DA040717, MH107444) and the University of
contributor, Jaak Panksepp (1943– 2017), who Maryland, College Park. Richard Davidson’s work
helped popularize the idea of affective neurosci- is supported by the National Institutes of Health
ence as a distinct field of scientific inquiry. Jaak (AG051426, AT004952, HD090256, MH018931,
passed away just before this volume went to press. MH043454, MH100031), Silicon Valley Community
Andrew Fox, Regina Lapate, and Alexander Foundation, the University of Wisconsin–Madison,
Shackman acknowledge the unique intellec- and several gifts to the Center for Healthy Minds.
tual opportunities afforded to us and to many
—A.S.F., R.C.L., A.J.S., & R.J.D.
other trainees at the University of California,
xvi
xv
E D I TO R C O N T R I BU T I O N S
R.J.D. and Paul Ekman developed the overall essays and wrote the Afterwords. R.J.D. wrote
structure and spirit of the book. A.J.S. initiated the preface to Ekman’s essay. The Editors de-
the second edition. R.J.D. coordinated veloped the overall structure of the Epilogue.
interactions with the Publisher and provided A.S.F. and A.J.S. wrote the Epilogue. The Editors
theoretical and practical guidance. The Editors revised the Epilogue. A.J.S. wrote the ancillary
collectively developed the 14 fundamental sections of the book, including the Introduction.
questions and recruited Contributors. A.S.F. de- A.S.F. and R.C.L. revised the ancillary sections.
veloped a database and wrote code to track The Editors and Contributors proofread and ed-
essay submissions and communicate with ited the final copy for their respective portions
Contributors. A.S.F., R.C.L., and A.J.S. edited of the book.
xvi
xvi
C O N T R I BU TO R S
xviii Contributors
Contributors xix
xx Contributors
Contributors xxi
xxii Contributors
I N T RO D U C T I O N
A L E X A N D E R J. S H AC K M A N, A N D R E W S . F O X , R E G I N A C . L A PAT E ,
A N D R I C H A R D J. D AV I D S O N
Emotion is a defining feature of the human condi- emotion. The book included 63 short essays, written
tion and, thus, it is hardly surprising that it plays by 23 prominent researchers and theorists, with in-
a central role in contemporary scientific models tegrative commentaries written by Ekman and
of decision making, human development, inter- Davidson. Kenrick and Funder argued that “science
personal processes, personality, psychopathology, best progresses through multiple and mutually
and well- being. Methods and theories devel- critical attempts to understand the same problem”
oped by emotion researchers have profoundly (Kenrick & Funder, 1988, p. 32), and the side-by-
influenced the development of the fifth edition of side responses that made up The Nature of Emotion
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental provided a valuable opportunity for sharpening
Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, constructs, identifying unspoken assumptions, and
2013), the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health’s highlighting soft spots in the evidentiary record.
strategic plan and Research Domain Criteria But a quarter-century is a long time. The first
(RDoC) initiative, as well as emerging dimensional edition of The Nature of Emotion predated several
models of psychopathology (e.g., Kotov et al., 2017; methodological revolutions— in brain imaging,
Krueger et al., in press; Clark et al., 2017; Zald & computing, genomics, network science, open
Lahey, 2017). Emotion researchers now occupy science, optogenetics, and ‘wearable’ technologies,
leadership positions in a number of scientific to name a few—that have profoundly influenced
societies, including several focused on affect,1 and or promise to soon influence our understanding
are well represented among the faculty at top re- of emotion. So, while its bright red cover can still
search universities around the world. Numerous be seen on the bookshelf in many faculty offices,
highly cited reviews, special issues, specialty the first edition is rarely read or used for teaching
journals,2 and books—academic as well as pop- anymore.
ular—attest to the high level of interest in emotion The second edition of The Nature of Emotion
(e.g., Adolphs & Anderson, 2018; Ashar, Chang, & fills this gap and provide a definitive survey of
Wager, 2017; Bach & Dayan, 2017; Barrett, 2017; the current state of the affective sciences. Like
Barrett, Lewis, & Haviland-Jones, 2016; Barsade & the first edition, the book is organized into
Knight, 2015; Davidson & Begley, 2012; Hu, 2016; short chapters focused on basic questions about
LeDoux, 2015; Lerner, Li, Valdesolo, & Kassam, the nature and origins of emotion. Many of the
2015; Niedenthal & Brauer, 2012; Okon- Singer, questions were inspired by the first edition. A few
Hendler, Pessoa, & Shackman, 2015; Sheppes, Suri, of the original questions have been definitively
& Gross, 2015; Zald & Treadway, 2017). answered over the past 25 years (Can we control
Nearly 25 years ago, Paul Ekman and Richard our emotions?) and were reframed for the new
Davidson spearheaded the first edition of The edition (How are emotions regulated by context
Nature of Emotion (1994), an edited volume focused and cognition?). Other questions are entirely new
on 12 questions about the nature and origins of (What is the added value of studying the brain for
xvxi
xxiv Introduction
understanding emotion?). Each of the 14 questions an Afterword, highlighting key points of con-
is addressed by a collection of experts chosen to sensus and disagreement.
represent a range of disciplines and methodo- A major goal of The Nature of Emotion is to
logical approaches. For many of the chapters, take stock of what we have learned as students
we invited a prominent researcher to address a of emotion and inspire the next generation of re-
question that fell outside of his or her core area of search and conceptual work. We share Ekman and
expertise, providing an important dose of outside Davidson’s aspiration for the first edition: “It is
perspective. Altogether, 118 scientists contributed our hope that this volume will serve as a guide for
91 essays, a sizable increase over the first edition. students and researchers and help to define the re-
By design, the composition of this group was search agenda for affective science” in the coming
more gender-diverse than the first edition and in- years. In the Epilogue, we have provided our own
cluded a number of early-career “rising stars.” At updated vision of that research agenda.
the end of each chapter, the Editors have written
xv
P R E FAC E TO PAU L
E K M A N ’ S E S S AY
R I C H A R D J . D AV I D S O N
I first met Paul Ekman in 1974 when I was a deeply meaningful life. This passion is one that
graduate student at Harvard and Paul was vis- continues to the present day and has deeply im-
iting Boston. I then had the opportunity to bond pacted his views and his personal life. He has been
with him in 1980 when I was giving a talk at the interested in how meditation practices from an-
International Neuropsychological Society, which cient contemplative traditions might be used to
was meeting in San Francisco. I was an assistant transform emotion and has engaged in a dialogue
professor at the time, and I remember thinking that with the Dalai Lama on these issues that has led
Paul would spend 15 or 20 minutes with me. We to the publication of a book that is destined to be
ended up spending several hours together during influential in the annals of affective science (Dalai
that visit, laying the groundwork for what would Lama & Ekman, 2009).
become a lifelong friendship and collaboration. I have personally been deeply affected by Paul.
In this essay, Paul presents a wide-ranging sum- His contributions to affective science will live on
mary of his views on how emotions work. Although for generations, and his insights will help to shape
the insights shared in this essay are, for the most the next generation of emotion research (Darwin
part, not derived from empirical scientific research, 1872/2009; Ekman, 2007, 2016; Ekman & Cordaro,
they are based on his extraordinarily keen powers 2011; Ekman & Rosenberg, 1997). Paul also seam-
of observation. Paul is unusually attentive to sig- lessly integrated basic and applied research and
nals of emotion, and it is very appropriate to say never shied away from the challenge of how his
that he has spent more than six decades observing work might benefit different sectors in society (e.g.,
emotions in himself and others with uncanny sen- Ekman, 2001, 2003). In fact, he relished the oppor-
sitivity. This perch gives him a panoramic vantage tunity to engage in practical research that made
point for his provocative observations. a real difference. His influence in many different
While some of his suggestions are controversial sectors of the culture, ranging from law enforce-
(e.g., the adoption of Silvan Tomkins’s framework ment to mental health treatment and health care,
of “affect program” or the notion of a refractory pe- will be felt for many years to come. He never shied
riod immediately following the elicitation of emo- away from being a provocateur, and his views and
tion during which an emotion cannot be modified), findings were often controversial. I have come to ap-
they are always clearly articulated and presented in preciate that truly novel work is destined to be con-
a courageous way so that others can test, modify, or troversial, particularly when it is first introduced.
refute them as new data are gathered. I am extremely fortunate to call Paul a close
Paul clearly had the vision that understanding friend, a colleague, and a mentor. The inclusion
emotions are key to well-being and to living a of this essay in this new edition of The Nature
xvi
H OW E M OT I O N S
M I G H T WO R K
PAU L E K M A N
We don’t become emotional about everything; we the processes involved—can also work against us,
are not in the grip of emotion all the time. Emotions causing inappropriate emotional reactions.
come and go. They occur when we sense, rightly or In that first instant, the decision or evaluation
wrongly, that something that seriously affects our that brings forth the emotion is extraordinarily
welfare, for better or worse, is happening or about fast and outside of our awareness. We must have
to happen. (Although this is the most common automatic appraising mechanisms that are con-
path for awakening an emotion, there are eight tinually scanning the world around us, detecting
other paths for generating emotion; Ekman, 2007, when something important to our welfare, to our
Chapter 2). Emotions evolved to prepare us to deal survival, is happening.
quickly with the most vital events in our lives. Nearly everyone who does research on emo-
Much of the time our emotions serve us well, tion today agrees with what I have described so
mobilizing us to deal with what is most impor- far: emotions are reactions to matters that seem
tant in life, but sometimes our emotions get us into to be very important to our welfare, and emotions
trouble: We may feel and show the right emotion often begin so quickly that we are not aware of the
but at the wrong intensity; or we may feel the appro- processes in our mind that set them off. Research
priate emotion, but we show it the wrong way (e.g., on the brain is consistent with what I have so far
our anger was justified, but resorting to the silent suggested. We can make very complex evaluations
treatment was childish); or we may feel and show an very quickly, in milliseconds, without being aware
emotion that is simply inappropriate to the situation of the evaluative process.
that we are in. Now let me raise questions about which there
As an emotion begins, it takes us over in those is disagreement. What are our automatic appraisal
first milliseconds, directing what we do and say mechanisms sensitive to, and how did they become
and think. Emotions prepare us to deal with im- sensitive to those triggers? How do emotion triggers
portant events without our having to think about become established? The answers will tell us why
what to do. Emotions produce changes in parts of we have an emotion when we do. It will also help
our brain that mobilize us to deal with what has us answer the question of why we sometimes have
set off the emotion, as well as changes in our auto- emotions that don’t seem at all appropriate, while at
nomic nervous system (ANS), which regulates our other moments our emotions are perfectly attuned
heart rate, breathing, sweating, and many other to what is happening, and may even save our lives.
bodily changes, preparing us for different actions. Most of what we know has not come from
Emotions also send out signals: changes in our actually observing when people experience an
expressions, face, voice, and bodily posture. We emotion. Instead, it comes from their answers to
don’t choose these changes; they simply happen. questionnaires about when they remember feeling
This wonderful feature of our emotions—that they one or another emotion. Philosopher Peter Goldie,
can and usually do begin without our awareness of in his insightful book (Goldie, 2000), calls this kind
xxvii
of information “post- rationalizing.” This is not the course of growing up. The further removed the
to dismiss such information. The answers people variation is from the theme, the longer it may take,
give on such questionnaires, like the explanations until we get to the point where reflective appraising
we give ourselves after an emotional episode to occurs. In reflective appraising, we are consciously
account for why we did what we did, may be in- aware of our evaluative processes; we are thinking
complete and perhaps stereotyped because they go about and considering what is happening.
through the filters of what people are aware of and We are born prepared, with an unfolding sen-
remember. On questionnaires there is the addi- sitivity to the events that were relevant to the sur-
tional issue of what people are willing to tell others. vival of our species in its ancestral environment as
But the answers can still teach us quite a bit. hunters and gatherers. The themes for which the
Some things make nearly everyone feel the autoappraisers are constantly scanning our envi-
same emotion— a menacing person, carrying a ronment, typically without our knowing it, were
club, who suddenly appears on a dark street, al- selected over the course of our evolution. The idi-
most always triggers fear. But my wife is afraid of osyncratic variations, each person’s own emotional
mice, and they don’t frighten me at all. The auto- triggers, are learned, reflecting what each of us
matic appraisals must be on the alert for two kinds experiences.
of triggers. They must be scanning for events that Evidence consistent with this view comes
everyone encounters, events that are important to from a brilliant series of studies by the Swedish
the welfare or survival of all human beings. For psychologist Arne Öhman (1993). Also, in his
each emotion there might be a few such events that extraordinarily prescient book The Expression
are stored in the brains of every human being. It of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles
might be a schema, an abstract outline, or the bare Darwin described an experiment with a snake he
bones of a scene, such as the threat of harm for performed more than a hundred years ago:
fear, or some important loss for sadness. Another,
equally likely, possibility is that what is stored is I put my face close to the thick glass-plate
not at all abstract, but is a specific event, such as, in front of a puff- adder in the Zoological
for fear, the loss of support, or something coming Gardens, with the firm determination of not
at us so quickly that it is likely to hit us. For sadness, starting back if the snake struck at me; but,
the universal trigger might be the loss of a loved as soon as the blow was struck, my resolution
one, of a person to whom one is strongly attached. went for nothing, and I jumped a yard or two
There is no scientific basis yet for choosing be- backwards with astonishing rapidity. My will
tween these two possibilities, but it does not make and reason were powerless against the imagi-
a difference for how we lead our emotional lives. nation of a danger which had never been expe-
Over the course of our lives, we encounter rienced. (pp. 43–44)
many specific events that we learn to interpret in
such a way as to frighten, anger, disgust, sadden, Darwin’s experience shows how rational
surprise, or please us, and these are added to the thought cannot prevent a fearful response to an
universal antecedent events, expanding on what innate fear theme, an issue to which I will return
the automatic appraisers (hereafter, autoappraiser) shortly.
are alert to. These learned events may closely or We benefit from the experience of our species
distantly resemble the originally stored events. on this planet, quickly responding to triggers that
They are elaborations of, or additions to, the uni- have been relevant to our survival. I am convinced
versal antecedent events. They are not the same for that one of the most distinctive features of emo-
all people but vary with what we each experience. tion is that the events that trigger emotions are
I use the word theme for what is universal, and influenced not just by our individual experience,
variations on those themes that develop in each but also by our ancestral past. Emotions, in the
person’s experiences (Ekman & Friesen, 1975; felicitous phrase of Richard Lazarus, reflect the
note: later, Lazarus adopted our terminology in his “wisdom of the ages,” both in the emotion themes
book: Lazarus, 1991b). and the emotion responses. The autoappraisers are
When we encounter a theme, such as the scanning for what has been important to survival
sensations we experience when a chair unexpect- not just in our own individual lives, but also in the
edly falls out from under us, it triggers an emo- lives of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
tion with very little evaluation. It may take a bit Sometimes we respond emotionally to matters
longer for the autoappraisers to evaluate any of the that were important to us earlier in our lives but
variations on each theme, the ones we learned in that are no longer relevant. The variations on
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CHAPTER II
THE GATEWAY TO EGYPT
The whole of to-day has been spent wandering about the cotton
wharves of Alexandria. They extend for a mile or so up and down the
Mahmudiyeh Canal, which joins the city to the Nile, and are flanked
on the other side by railroads filled with cotton trains from every part
of Egypt. These wharves lie under the shadow of Pompey’s Pillar
and line the canal almost to the harbour. Upon them are great
warehouses filled with bales and bags. Near by are cotton presses,
while in the city itself is a great cotton exchange where the people
buy and sell, as they do at Liverpool, from the samples of lint which
show the quality of the bales brought in from the plantations.
Indeed, cotton is as big a factor here as it is in New Orleans, and
the banks of this canal make one think of that city’s great cotton
market. The warehouses are of vast extent, and the road between
them and the waterway is covered with bales of lint and great bags
of cotton seed. Skullcapped blue-gowned Egyptians sit high up on
the bales on long-bedded wagons hauled by mules. Other Egyptians
unload the bales from the cars and the boats and others carry them
to the warehouses. They bear the bales and the bags on their backs,
while now and then a man may be seen carrying upon his head a
bag of loose cotton weighing a couple of hundred pounds. The
cotton seed is taken from the boats in the same way, seed to the
amount of three hundred pounds often making one man’s load.
Late in the afternoon I went down to the harbour to see the cotton
steamers. They were taking on cargoes for Great Britain, Russia,
France, Germany, and the United States. This staple forms three
fourths of the exports of Egypt. Millions of pounds of it are annually
shipped to the United States, notwithstanding the fact that we raise
more than two thirds of all the cotton of the world. Because of its
long fibre, there is always a great demand for Egyptian cotton, which
is worth more on the average than that of any other country.
For hundreds of years before the reign of that wily old tyrant,
Mehemet Ali, whose rule ended with the middle of the nineteenth
century, Egypt had gone along with the vast majority of her people
poor, working for a wage of ten cents or so a day, and barely out of
reach of starvation all the time. Mehemet Ali saw that what she
needed to become truly prosperous and raise the standard of living
was some crop in which she might be the leader. It was he who
introduced long-staple cotton, a product worth three times as much
as the common sort, and showed what it could do for his country.
Since then King Cotton has been the money maker of the Nile valley,
the great White Pharaoh whom the modern Egyptians worship. He
has the majority of the Nile farmers in his employ and pays them
royally. He has rolled up a wave of prosperity that has engulfed the
Nile valley from the Mediterranean to the cataracts and the
prospects are that he will continue to make the country richer from
year to year. The yield is steadily increasing and with the improved
irrigation methods it will soon be greater than ever. From 1895 to
1900 its average annual value was only forty-five million dollars; but
after the Aswan Dam was completed it jumped to double that sum.
Though cotton is the big cash crop of Egypt, small flocks of sheep are kept on
many of the farms and the women spin the wool for the use of the family.
Sugar is Egypt’s crop of second importance. Heavy investments of French and
British capital in the Egyptian industry were first made when political troubles
curtailed Cuba’s production.
The greater part of Upper and Lower Egypt can be made to grow
cotton, and cotton plantations may eventually cover over five million
five hundred thousand acres. If only fifty per cent. of this area is
annually put into cotton it will produce upward of two million bales
per annum, or more than one sixth as much as the present cotton
crop of the world. In addition to this, there might be a further increase
by putting water into some of the oases that lie in the valley of the
Nile outside the river bottom, and also by draining the great lakes
about Alexandria and in other parts of the lower delta.
Egypt has already risen to a high place among the world’s cotton
countries. The United States stands first, British India second, and
Egypt third. Yet Egypt grows more of this staple for its size and the
area planted than any other country on the globe. Its average yield is
around four hundred and fifty pounds per acre, which is far in excess
of ours. Our Department of Agriculture says that our average is only
one hundred and ninety pounds per acre, although we have, of
course, many acres which produce five hundred pounds and more.
It is, however, because of its quality rather than its quantity that
Egyptian cotton holds such a commanding position in the world’s
markets. Cotton-manufacturing countries must depend on Egypt for
their chief supply of long-staple fibre. There are some kinds that sell
for double the amount our product brings. It is, in fact, the best cotton
grown with the exception of the Sea Island raised on the islands off
the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. The Sea Island cotton has
a rather longer fibre than the Egyptian. The latter is usually brown in
colour and is noted for its silkiness, which makes it valuable for
manufacturing mercerized goods. We import an enormous quantity
of it to mix with our cotton, and we have used the Egyptian seed to
develop a species known as American-Egyptian, which possesses
the virtues of both kinds.
There is a great difference in the varieties raised, according to the
part of the Nile valley from which each kind comes. The best cotton
grows in the delta, which produces more than four fifths of the
output.
A trip through the Nile cotton fields is an interesting one. The
scenes there are not in the least like those of our Southern states.
Much of the crop is raised on small farms and every field is marked
out with little canals into which the water is introduced from time to
time. There are no great farm houses in the landscape and no barns.
The people live in mud villages from which they go out to work in the
fields. They use odd animals for ploughing and harrowing and the
crop is handled in a different way from ours.
Let me give you a few of the pictures I have seen while travelling
through the country. Take a look over the delta. It is a wide expanse
of green, spotted here and there with white patches. The green
consists of alfalfa, Indian corn, or beans. The white is cotton,
stretching out before me as far as my eye can follow it.
Here is a field where the lint has been gathered. The earth is
black, with windrows of dry stalks running across it. Every stalk has
been pulled out by the roots and piled up. Farther on we see another
field in which the stalks have been tied into bundles. They will be
sold as fuel and will produce a full ton of dry wood to the acre. There
are no forests in Egypt, where all sorts of fuel are scarce. The stalks
from one acre will sell for two dollars or more. They are used for
cooking, for the farm engines on the larger plantations, and even for
running the machinery of the ginning establishments. In that village
over there one may see great bundles of them stored away on the
flat roofs of the houses. Corn fodder is piled up beside them, the
leaves having been torn off for stock feed. A queer country this,
where the people keep their wood piles on their roofs!
In that field over there they are picking cotton. There are scores of
little Egyptian boys and girls bending their dark brown faces above
the white bolls. The boys for the most part wear blue gowns and dirty
white skullcaps, though some are almost naked. The little girls have
cloths over their heads. All are barefooted. They are picking the fibre
in baskets and are paid so much per hundred pounds. A boy will
gather thirty or forty pounds in a day and does well if he earns as
much as ten cents.
The first picking begins in September. After that the land is
watered, and a second picking takes place in October. There is a
third in November, the soil being irrigated between times. The first
and second pickings, which yield the best fibre, are kept apart from
the third and sold separately.
After the cotton is picked it is put into great bags and loaded upon
camels. They are loading four in that field at the side of the road. The
camels lie flat on the ground, with their long necks stretched out.
Two bags, which together weigh about six hundred pounds, make a
load for each beast. Every bag is as long and wide as the mattress
of a single bed and about four feet thick. Listen to the groans of the
camels as the freight is piled on. There is one actually weeping. We
can see the tears run down his cheeks.
Now watch the awkward beasts get up. Each rises back end first,
the bags swaying to and fro as he does so. How angry he is! He
goes off with his lower lip hanging down, grumbling and groaning like
a spoiled child. The camels make queer figures as they travel. The
bags on each side their backs reach almost to the ground, so that
the lumbering creatures seem to be walking on six legs apiece.
Looking down the road, we see long caravans of camels loaded
with bales, while on the other side of that little canal is a small drove
of donkeys bringing in cotton. Each donkey is hidden by a bag that
completely covers its back and hides all but its little legs.
In these ways the crop is brought to the railroad stations and to the
boats on the canals. The boats go from one little waterway to
another until they come into the Mahmudiyeh Canal, and thence to
Alexandria. During the harvesting season the railroads are filled with
cotton trains. Some of the cotton has been ginned and baled upon
the plantations, and the rest is in the seed to be ginned at
Alexandria. There are ginning establishments also at the larger
cotton markets of the interior. Many of them are run by steam and
have as up-to-date machinery as we have. At these gins the seed is
carefully saved and shipped to Alexandria by rail or by boat.
The Nile bridge swings back to let through the native boats sailing down to
Alexandria with cargoes of cotton and sugar grown on the irrigated lands farther
upstream.
A rainless country, Egypt must dip up most of its water from the Nile, usually by
the crude methods of thousands of years ago. Here an ox is turning the creaking
sakieh, a wheel with jars fastened to its rim.
Egypt is a land that resists change, where even the native ox, despite the
frequent importation of foreign breeds, has the same features as are found in the
picture writings of ancient times. He is a cousin of the zebu.
The Egyptians put more work on their crop than our Southern
farmers do. In the first place, the land has to be ploughed with
camels or buffaloes and prepared for the planting. It must be divided
into basins, each walled around so that it will hold water, and inside
each basin little canals are so arranged that the water will run in and
out through every row. The whole field is cut up into these beds,
ranging in size from twenty-four to seventy-five feet square.
The cotton plants are from fourteen to twenty inches apart and set
in rows thirty-five inches from each other. It takes a little more than a
bushel of seed to the acre. The seeds are soaked in water before
planting, any which rise to the surface being thrown away. The
planting is done by men and boys at a cost of something like a dollar
an acre. The seeds soon sprout and the plants appear in ten or
twelve days. They are thinned by hand and water is let in upon them,
the farmers taking care not to give them too much. The plants are
frequently hoed and have water every week or so, almost to the time
of picking. The planting is usually done in the month of March, and,
as I have said, the first picking begins along in September.
I have been told that cotton, as it is grown here, exhausts the soil
and that the people injure the staple and reduce the yield by
overcropping. It was formerly planted on the same ground only every
third year, the ground being used in the interval for other crops or
allowed to lie fallow. At present some of the cotton fields are worked
every year and others two years out of three. On most of the farms
cotton is planted every other year, whereas the authorities say that in
order to have a good yield not more than forty per cent. of a man’s
farm should be kept to this crop from year to year. Just as in our
Southern states, a year of high cotton prices is likely to lead to
overcropping and reduced profits, and vice versa. Another trouble in
Egypt, and one which it would seem impossible to get around, is the
fact that cotton is practically the only farm crop. This puts the
fellaheen more or less at the mercy of fluctuating prices and
changing business conditions; so that, like our cotton farmers of the
South, they have their lean years and their fat years.
Egypt also has had a lot of trouble with the pink boll weevil. This
pestiferous cotton worm, which is to be found all along the valley of