758 Botanico- Agricultural account [Sept. 



but where grown is eminently successful, being cultivated with much 

 more care than in those parts that I have previously mentioned, and 

 kept constantly irrigated. The juice is expressed in the kulhari or 

 roller sugar-mill, of which I formerly sent a description to the Agricul- 

 tural Society. 



Cotton is also extensively grown in two ways, either as a rain crop, 

 as in the before mentioned tracts, or is sown in April and receives mo- 

 derate irrigation during the hot weather ; under this treatment it grows 

 to a much larger size than is common under the former method. 



The irrigated wheat and barley are particularly luxuriant, and in 

 good seasons the grain particularly fine ; it is frequently sown as early 

 as August or September so as to be in flower by December, but the 

 fruit then formed is generally destroyed by the hard frosts, and in sea- 

 sons of drought the white ants commit great devastation, laying waste 

 whole fields by devouring the roots of the plants ; rats also do great in- 

 jury to this crop, burrowing in the sandy hillocks so plentifully inter- 

 spersed among them and denuding the margin of the fields. 



Mustard is also cultivated a good deal, and poppy sparingly and only 

 for its oil not for opium. Masur I have never seen in this tract. 



Rice is only grown in that part of this tract bordering on the babul 

 region, and if ripe sufficiently early, is succeeded by a crop of gram in 

 the same ground. 



The usual kharif crops are bajra and joar and maize, all of which 

 grow most luxuriantly and to an immense height. 



The southern portion of this division which I have designated the 

 Jhand tract, is termed by the natives Malwa, whence that appellation to 

 the Sikh chiefs of families from the south of the Sutlej in contra-dis- 

 tinction to the Mdnjha and Doab Sikhs or invaders from the other side. 

 It is also named Chowhdra as distinguished from the Tihdra, or lower 

 part of the upper division just described, in consequence of only J of 

 the gross produce being demandable as the government share, while £ 

 is claimable in the former and § in the remaining portion of this and 

 the two preceding tracts, therefore termed Pachdie. 



What I have just remarked regarding the luxuriance of the gram 

 and kharif crops holds good also with regard to this division when the 

 rains are tolerably plentiful. But the wheat is generally poor, owing to 

 the very sandy nature of the soil. Here irrigation is impracticable 

 owing to the very great distance of the water from the surface, vary- 

 ing from 100 to 800 feet. In many villages there is only one, in 

 some not even a single well, therefore not only the cattle but even the 

 inhabitants very much depend on ponds (tobas) for their support. In 



