98 ENVIRONMENT AND MILLING QUALITIES. 



visible in the wheat plots at Bankipore and Dumraon in 1911 where 

 wheat followed rice. The samples also contained a high percen- 

 tage of soft and spotted grains. Drainage is therefore an impor- 

 tant matter in wheat growing in India both as regards yield and 

 quality even in areas where the crop is grown without any appre- 

 ciable rainfall during the growth period. The long periods of 

 rainless weather in India are apt to distract attention from the 

 necessity of drainage. In reality, however, in a country where 

 most of the rainfall is compressed into three months, the necessity 

 of perfect drainage is even greater than in localities where the 

 total precipitation is more evenly distributed through the year. 



At Pusa, during the wheat growing season, 1909-10, which 

 was preceded by a heavy monsoon, alternate strips of wheat and 

 gram (Gicer arietinum, L.) were sown on a plot of heavy wheat 

 land which was imperfectly drained during the monsoon. It was 

 observed that while the gram was exceedingly good the wheat was 

 poor and stunted with yellowish foliage and exceedingly small 

 ears. The total crop was only a small fraction of that obtained on 

 the rest of the field where the surface drainage was sufficient. 

 The markedly different behaviour of a cereal and a legume growing 

 under the same conditions in the presence of sufficient soil moisture 

 suggested that the explanation of the difference would be found 

 in the nitrogen supply in the soil. Accordingly the matter was 

 made the subject of an experiment in the following year, 1910-11. 



The monsoon of 1910, although well distributed, was small 

 in amount and no waterlogging took place as the showers 

 were absorbed and practically no water drained off the surface. 

 In consequence, the land had to be artificially waterlogged and this 

 was done during the month of September by pumping water from 

 the river on to the area under experiment. The land selected for 

 the experiment was well ploughed in the hot-weather of 1910 and 

 fallowed till the end of August when the central portion was em- 

 banked and artificially kept wet during the whole of September. 

 After drying sufficiently, the waterlogged portion was harrowed 

 and ploughed up and managed in the ordinary way till sowing 



