86 CLIMATE AND RESOURCES OP 



superior quality to that obtained from irrigated land. Here 

 is a plant, planted at the commencement of the hot weather, 

 which grows through the whole of the hot dry weather, simply 

 from the land being deeply cultivated, and its retaining 

 moisture from having been more deeply cultivated and 

 manured. In these unirrigated sugar-cane fields it is usual 

 to sow the seeds of the water-melon and other cucurbitaceous 

 plants which ripen their fruits during the hot weather and in 

 the commencement of the rains. Here is tolerable proof that 

 deep cultivation will retain sufficient moisture in the land for 

 the wants of plants, even in the hottest and driest season of 

 the year. 



Sugar-canes and melons, plants requiring a large amount 

 of moisture, sown in March, six months after the end of the 

 rains, at the commencement of the driest time of the year, 

 when there is no perceptible dew, grow during the hot winds, 

 the melons bearing fruit, notwithstanding their being in an 

 isolated field, in an open plain, and surrounded by fields the 

 bare surface of which is in a condition to generate heat. 

 Still it is said that irrigation is necessary for ordinary cereals 

 (wheat and barley) which require less moisture, are sown 

 about a month after the end of the rains, when there are 

 heavy dews during the greater portion of their period of 

 growth, when the greater part of the country is under crops, 

 and absorbs and radiates heat, and does not generate it, 

 and when there is a fair amount of humidity in the air, 

 which would be increased were the land more deeply culti- 

 vated. 



I have been told there must have been some peculiarity in 

 the soil where sugar-cane and melons were grown without 

 irrigation. The only peculiarity was the soil was more deeply 

 cultivated and manured. I recommended a thakur zemindar 

 to try cultivating sugar-cane on his land, substituting deep 



