TRITICUM SATIVUM. 



3 



Season. Wheat is a rabi crop, being sown in the end of October or beginning of November 



and cut in March and April. As a rule it is only sown on land which has lain fallow 

 during the preceding kharif (called chaumds or piiral), but in highly manured land near 

 village sites it occasionally follows maize, the maize being cut only 6 or 8 weeks at the 

 most before the wheat is sown. No particular rotation is known to be followed, but in 

 tracts where cotton is widely grown, wheat is generally said to follow it, probably, how- 

 ever, merely because cotton in the kharif, like wheat in the rabi, is the crop which is 

 principally grown on the best land of the village. 



Mixtures. ' Wheat is commonly sown mixed with barley (when it is termed gojai), or with 



gram {(jochana), as well as grown alone. Averages struck on the crop returns of the 30 

 temporarily settled districts for the years 1879, 1880 and 1881, shows the area under 

 wheat, wheat-barley and wheat-gram to stand in the relation of the figures 32, 10 and 

 9. Wheat-gram (also called lirrd) is but little grown north of the Jumna, but in 

 Bundelkhand it forms one of the principal and most characteristic crops. Usually a 

 wheat field contains some rape or mustard sown either in parallel lines across the field 

 or as a border. These flower in the beginning of February before the wheat has begun 

 to ripen, and the contrast of the bright yellow bands with the shining green of their 

 setting is a feature of striking beauty in an Indian village landscape. Linseed and 

 dudn {Eruca sativa) are less commonly sown in wheat fields. 



Soils and manure. Wheat is grown on alm-ost every soil but the very lightest sand ; a rather heavy 



loam being considered best suited to it. The fields of loamy soil {domat) which cover a 

 large portion of the Doab, even when mere isolated tessera in the midst of usar plains, 

 bear with careful cultivation crops of wheat of surprising excellence, although unman- 

 ured for years. But manure is, as a rule, applied to the better class of wheat fields 

 generally in every second or third year, although in quantities which would sound ridicu- 

 lously small to the English farmer, 4 tons (=100 maunds nearly) being about the average. 

 It is reported from some Districts of the Provinces (Bijnor, Fatehpur and Gorakhpur) 

 that land is occasionally prepared for wheat by herding sheep or cattle on it, but this is 

 a practice of very far from general occurrence. 



Tillage. The number of ploughings varies within very wide limits, depending not only on the 



character of the locality and soil, but on the energy and leisure of the cultivator. Thus 

 20 ploughings are reported as not uncommon in Gorakhpur, while two or three are held 

 sufficient in the black soil of Bundelkhand. Eight ploughings may be taken as the 

 average number. It is essential that the land should be ploughed at the very commence- 

 ment of the rains, so as to lie in open furrow and drink in the whole of the rain which 

 falls. Indeed the ploughing of wheat land is often held to take precedence of prepara- 

 tions for the kharif crops as is expressed in the proverb 



" Age gohun, pichhe dlian, 

 Usko kahiye bara kisan." 



The clods are crushed and a fine tilth (which is absolutely essential in most soils) 

 created by dragging a flat log of wood {mai, pdiha or hengd) across the field, the bullock 

 driver standing on it to increase the weight. 

 Sowing. If the ground is very damp the seed is sometimes sown broad-cast and ploughed in, 



when it is not buried more than one inch below the surface, and is less likely to rot than 



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