UPPER INDIA. 15 



The cold- weather crops are sown in October and November, 

 and are reaped in March and April. The bulk of these crops 

 consists of wheat, barley, and gram (Cicer arietinum). After 

 these crops are reaped, the fields are left untouched by the 

 plough till the rains, unless wanted for indigo, when it is 

 slightly scratched with hoes, the seed sprinkled on the surface, 

 and forced into growth by irrigation. Sometimes the hoeing 

 of the ground even is not considered necessary, and the sur- 

 face is prepared for the seed by dragging a branch of a tree 

 over it. This shows the extent to which the natives trust to 

 irrigation. Where water is to be had they trust to it, and it 

 alone, for a crop, and neglect all other precautions, such as 

 preparing a proper bed for the seed, manuring, &c. 



With the exception of what small amount of land is sown 

 with indigo, the land occupied by the cold- weather crops is a 

 bare plain during the hot weather, the months of April, May, 

 and June, the time of greatest heat. Thus the whole of the 

 uncultivated land not covered with jungle, and the whole of 

 the cultivated land, with but trifling exceptions, are during 

 the hottest time of the year bare plains ; and it is well known 

 that wherever on the face of the earth, in tropical or sub- 

 tropical regions, large bare plains occur, the heat is much 

 more intense than where, in the same latitudes, we find 

 countries covered with forest growth. For instance, the 

 Sahara, the deserts of Arabia and Persia, and the plains of 

 Upper India, are notorious as being the hottest places in the 

 world ; and the heat of these places is universally allowed to 

 be the result of the incidence of the rays of solar heat on bare 

 plains. The heat is intensified by the hardened condition of 

 the surface-soil, which does not absorb and radiate heat, but 

 retains or reflects it, as rock or stone would. The power of 

 reflecting heat possessed by any object is in inverse ratio to 

 its power of absorption and radiation. The action of heat in 



