APPENDIX I. 



Notes from settlement reports and gazetteers regarding the extent of 

 erosion in the Agra and Bundelkhand districts, United Provinces. 



Extract from the final settlement report on the revision of the 

 Jhansi district, including Lalitpur sub-division, ly A. W. PlM, 

 ESQ ., c.s., Settlement Officer. 



MOST parts of the district in fact are' overdrained. In the 

 high-lying tracts the natural soil is stony and excessively poor. 

 In the more level plains is found the rich deposit which forms the 

 black soil characteristic of Bundelkhand, but in the villages border- 

 ing the ravines this is being scoured and broken up by the surface 

 drainage, and the area of good soil is gradually diminishing. The 

 remedy is the construction of bandhs or small fields embankment. 

 These the people are familiar with and appreciate and they should 

 be helped by liberal grants of taqavi. 



The characteristic features of this latter tract are small 

 doabs of black soil lying between a series of ravine-edged nala 

 valleys. The most important of these are the Lakheri and 

 Chaich nadis with their tributaries running into the Dhasan 

 through the Mau and Garotha tahsils. Smaller nalas run into the 

 Bert or Pahuj through the Moth tahsil. In the latter the general 

 level is much less broken except on the strip bordering on either 

 bank of the Befcwa. The soil in the centre of these doabs, when 

 free from scouring, is good mar, but the deposit thins rapidly as 

 it approaches the ravines on either side of the mar, giving place to 

 inferior Jcabar and finally to the worthless patti bordering on the 

 broken ground along the nalas. 



Eavines and the deterioration caused by them are a subject 

 of serious importance to the whole of the black soil area. 

 They reach their greatest development in the maze of broken 

 unculfcurable ground along the Dhasan and the left bank of 

 the Betwa, but their destructive influence is still more apparent 

 along the numerous tributary nalas which traverse the plains 

 of black soil. In Moth and Northern Jhansi their influence is 

 confined to the neighbourhood of the Betwa, but tahsils Mau and 

 Garotha are traversed by a series of large nalas following a 

 roughly parallel course to the north-east and falling into the 

 Dhasan. Commencing from the south, the principal are the Ur, 

 the Sukhnei flowing under the town of Mau, the Lakheru, which 

 after the junction of the large tributaries known as the Dhunderi 

 and Patrehi, passes the villages of Garotha and, lastly, the Chaich 



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