276 ` EDGEWORTII'S ACCOUNT OF THE SIKH STATES, 
under this treatment it attains a much larger size than i is 
common under the former method. ER 
** The irrigated wheat and barley are particularly luxuriant, 
and in good seasons the grain particularly fine; it is frequently 
sown as early as August or September so as to be in flower by 
December, but the fruit then formed is generally destroyed . 
by the hard frosts, and in seasons of drought the white ants 
commit devastation, laying waste whole fields by devouring 
the roots of the plants; rats also do great injury to this crop, 
burrowing in the sandy hillocks so plentifully interspersed 
among shem and denuding the margin of the fields. 
* Mustard is also cultivaned a good deal, and poppy spat- - 
ingly and only for its oil, not for opium. Masur I have never 
seen in this tract. 
** Rice is only grown in that sans of this tract We 
on the bábál region, and if ripe sufficiently early, is succeeded | 
by a crop of gram in the same ground. 
* "The usual AAaríf crops are bajra and joar and maize, all 
of which grow most luxuriantly and to an immense height. 
“The southern portion of this division which I have de- 
signated the Jhand tract, is termed by the natives Malwa, 
whence that appellation to the Sikh chiefs of families from 
the south of the Sutlej in contra-distinction to the Mánjha and : 
-Doab Sikhs or invaders from the other side. It is also "—— i 
— Chowhára, as distinguished from the Tihdra, or lower part of : 
the upper division just described; in consequence of only one- ; 
fourth of the gross produce being demandable as the gos : 
ment share, while one-third is claimed in the former and — D. 
fifths in the remaining portion of this and the two d$ 
tracts, therefore termed. PacAdie. l 
_ * What I have just remarked regarding the jesse of : 
- the gram and kharif crops, holds good also with regard to 
this division when the rains are tolerably plentiful. + But the 
at is generally poor, owing to the very sandy nature of - 
ere irrigation is impracticable, because of the 
of the water. from the surface, varying from 
illages there i is only one, in seme 
