UPPER INDIA. 85 



this field purposely avoided cultivating the soil above eight or 

 nine inches deep, as I wished to see if that was sufficiently 

 deep to ensure crops without irrigation. I have raised crops 

 fully equal to my neighbours, besides getting two crops every 

 year when they only got one, still I consider the depth of 

 eight or nine inches insufficient, and that a greater depth 

 would give increased crops. 



I have mentioned the amount of unirrigated lands yearly 

 producing crops as a proof that crops can be grown without 

 irrigation, the reason seems to be that the unirrigated lands 

 are lighter and more easily and deeply worked. In the Bu- 

 daon district a fair amount of sugar-cane is grown on high 

 land which is never irrigated, and the yield is not much, if 

 at all, inferior to that of crops on the irrigated lands. 



The land is prepared in the following way : After a cold- 

 weather crop has been taken from a field in March or April 

 the land remains untouched till the rains, when it is dug with 

 mattocks, the natives say a foot or eighteen inches deep. I 

 doubt their being dug above eight or ten inches deep. Sometimes 

 ridges are made round the field to prevent loss of water by 

 surface -drainage, and allow the rain-water to sink into the 

 soil. Where the land is level, the ridges round the field are 

 sometimes not made, it being considered that deeply loosening 

 the soil will allow sufficient water to penetrate, and will retain 

 it. The land is ploughed occasionally through the following 

 cold weather to thoroughly pulverize the soil, and it is manured. 

 The cane is planted in February or March, which, finding 

 moisture in the deeply-cultivated soil, does not require irriga- 

 tion. Some-times sugar-cane is taken after a rain crop without 

 irrigation ; in this case the land only has the rain of the cold 

 weather in it to supply the wants of the crop. 



The juice of canes from unirrigated land is said to contain 

 a greater percentage of saccharine matter, and to be of a 



