52 PEOGEESS IN WESTEEN INDIA 



Even in the regions of scanty rainfall very heavy 

 storms occur, usually at the beginning and the end of 

 the monsoon, when 3 or 4 inches of rain may fall in 

 the course of a few hours. These storms do great 

 damage to the fields everywhere, and especially in 

 tracts of deep soil, where the land undulates in long 

 slopes. As the surface water gathers volume and 

 velocity towards the bottom of the slope, it cuts deep 

 channels into the soil, ruining the crops that may be 

 standing, sweeping away enormous quantities of fine 

 silt, and leaving behind it broad tracks of damaged 

 land which never gets a chance of recovering its fer- 

 tility before another similar storm occurs. Much of 

 the best soil is, in this way, washed down and piled 

 up alongside the rivers and nalas, and by the middle 

 of the rainy season a large part of the finest silt and 

 the manure of the cultivated fields is in the rivers, and 

 well on its way to the sea. To control the surface 

 washing the people in many tracts construct field 

 embankments. In doing so they are much handi- 

 capped by the smallness of the holdings and by the 

 general lack of co-operation amongst neighbours. The 

 designs and construction of these embankments, also, 

 often leave much to be desired ; but in some tracts 

 much excellent work of this kind is done, and going 

 on, as it does, from year to year, renders considerable 

 areas more productive than they formerly were, and 

 must have an appreciable effect on production, though 

 it is impossible to appraise this effect with any ac- 

 curacy. 



