UPPER INDIA. 93 



ever bad they may appear, are rendered productive by ex- 

 posure to the air. The irrigationists say that the surface- 

 soil only is productive, the subsoil is bad ; if such were the 

 case, which I deny, there would be still greater reason for 

 preventing the surface-soil being washed away, and it would 

 be another argument against surface- drainage. Now the 

 ploughed arable surface-soil is washed away from the higher 

 lands, as the surface of a convex macadamized street, ground 

 to dust by the action of wheels, is washed into the gutters 

 by a heavy shower. 



Now that the evils of irrigation are apparent throughout 

 the country, there seems to be no reason for persistence 

 in it. 



Agriculture is a continually advancing science. The system 

 suited for a new rich soil, as freshly broken-up jungle or 

 forest land, is not adapted for land that has been for ages 

 under cultivation. The soil of freshly broken-up forest land 

 is chiefly composed of decayed vegetable matter, it requires 

 no manure, and any scratching of the surface will enable it 

 to carry crops. Because this was the case with every field 

 when first broken up and brought into cultivation, this 

 system is forsooth to be continued. We are to ignore the 

 fact that the land has been reduced in fertility by the crops 

 taken from it, that it has been impoverished by mismanage- 

 ment arising from ignorance, that the vegetable soil which 

 attracted water from the atmosphere and held it has disap- 

 peared, and we have in its place a mineral soil which has 

 not the same power of abstracting water from the air and 

 retaining it ; the physical condition of the soil has been 

 changed, yet no change is to be made in the manner of its 

 treatment, because that was sufficient in former times, under, 

 however, very different circumstances. The same system 

 being now pursued in an impoverished state of the land, as 



