264 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



In the rains rice is grown on its wet surface, and in the dry 

 weather it cracks everywhere into a network of deep 

 cracks, down which a horse may lose his leg. But they 

 seldom do, being far too wideawake. 



The plains of India, which grow two crops of food, and 

 also cotton, flax, and wool for clothing, are very fertile. 

 As the people do not require animal food, the soil can 

 support an immensely greater population than that of 

 northern countries, which grow only one crop in the year, 

 and where most of the area is required to support cattle 

 and sheep for the diet of a carnivorous race of men. It 

 is a remarkable thing that the great alluvial plains of 

 India, which have been cultivated for thousands of years, 

 do not require manure, and will grow crops without any- 

 thing being returned to the land. The manure of the 

 cattle, even, is burned. The great heat of the sun seems 

 to draw up plant food from the black under-soil, and the 

 very heavy rains restore ammonia to the earth. The 

 modern farming systems of England, which cannot sup- 

 port its population (more than two-thirds of the food- 

 supply being imported, and most of the manure run into 

 the sea), are by comparison very wasteful. That we are 

 now drawing on America and the plains of India for 

 linseed to fatten our cattle, and on Chili for deposits to 

 manure our exhausted soil, does seem an unnatural 

 expedient, and not the permanent system on which a 

 self-contained country should depend. 



It is interesting to observe the old, old process of culti- 

 vation still flourishing in the Indian villages. The plough, 

 slowly crossing the unfenced plain, is made of a piece of 

 rough timber which goes between the bullocks to the 

 yoke across their necks, the ploughshare consisting of 

 another piece of crooked timber, pointed forward with an 

 iron tip, which burrows through the loose soil, casting it up 



