472 Mr. W. Jesse on the 



doubtj from a political and economic point of view, but 

 disastrous to the sportsman and the naturalist. Even within 

 the last six years I have watched many of my favourite snipc- 

 jheels replaced one by one by '' smiling corn-fields/' and, 

 doubtless, as time goes on, the area of arable land will in- 

 crease still further. 



''There is not much diversity in the soil. The natives 

 themselves generally divide it into four kinds — goind, 

 domat, matyar, and bhnr. Of the area under cultivation 

 20 per cent, may be put down as goind (highly manured 

 land), 55 as domat (mixed sand and clay), 20 as matyar 

 (heavy clay), and 15 as bhur (sand).'' The country, as a 

 whole, is but part of a vast alluvial plain, remarkable for the 

 absence of stone. Kunker, an impure calcareous concretion, 

 very hard and of considerable value as road-metal, occurs 

 in layers and patches, rarely at any great depth, and 

 often appears at the surface in the vicinity of nullahs and 

 jheels. In sinking the wells of the bridge over the Ganges 

 at Cawupore, however, kunker was met with at a depth of 

 60 feet. Forming, as the district does, part of the " Garden 

 of India," the soil is very fertile, the principal crops being 

 wheat, barley, millet, Indian corn, gram, sugar-cane, pulse, 

 and oil-seeds, llice is grown along the edges of rivers, 

 jheels, and in other suitable localities ; the tobacco-plant is 

 reared near Lucknow, while the cultivation of opium employs 

 a large number of people, and brings in a considerable revenue 

 to the Government. 



The climate, on the whole, is healthy. In the neighbour- 

 hood of the big rivers, and towards the Terai, malaria is 

 prevalent during and after the rains, and Lucknow itself 

 has an unpleasant reputation for enteric fever ; but beyond 

 that, and an occasional epidemic of cholera, there is nothing 

 much to be feared. 



The average rainfall is about 38 inches. During the ten 

 years 1870-79 the average was 41*18 inches, and this in 

 spite of the two years 1876 and 1877, with rainfalls of 

 23"'67 and ll''*66 respectively. The scantiness of water 

 in 1877, according to Mr. Reid, caused a wonderful change 



