0)1 the Conditions^ of Wheatr-Groxvinfj in India. 1 7 
water ; if they fail to do so they are ruined. After the rain 
subsides, the autumn heat begins to suck up the water, and in 
time bakes the field, immense cracks severing it into great 
blocks of clay as hard as stone. Hence it follows that agricul- 
tural operations cannot be resumed until the ground is softened 
again by rain. 
In Upper India a much greater degree of river inundation 
exists ; the dcabs, or tracts of land between two rivers, being 
referable to three distinct areas : (a) that portion which is regu- 
larly inundated by the rise of the rivers on either side ; (h) the 
further portion where the waters of the rivers penetrate under- 
ground, and may be reached by wells from twenty to sixty feet 
deep ; and (c) the central elevated ridge, that is entirely 
dependent on rain or artificial irrigation. 
Area of Artificial Irrigation. — While indicating the nature 
of inundation, we have also briefly exemplified the regions 
where canal irrigation is possible and beneficial. Canals in 
Bengal, as a whole, would be entirely out of the question. The 
nature of the primary agi'iculture is distinctly aquatic, and the 
annual rainfall is sufficient to produce the required degi-ee of 
inundation. In times of drought, canals could never reach 
more than an infinitesimal portion of the country, they would 
only be required once in perhaps every ten or twenty years, and 
might during the interval prove dangerous to the natural 
drainage of the country. In Upper India it is quite otherwise. 
There are immense tracts of countiy uncultivated simply because 
the rainfall is too small to admit of cultivation, but which could 
be at once thrown under wheat and other crops if artificially 
irrigated. Sir John and General Strachey, in their work on 
the " Finances and Public Works of India," prove that the 
value of land is immensely increased by the construction of 
canals, and show that the two great canals in the Panjab " in a 
single year added to the wealth of the Panjab a sum not less 
than two-thirds of their entire original cost." 
^\'}leat and Bice Areas. — We have above briefly indicated 
the great wheat and rice areas; but where these meet and 
overlap, the millets become important. Where rice-cultiva- 
tion dimiuishes, the millets appear, with more and more w^heat, 
and less and less millets, until the great centres of wheat- 
production are attained. The pulses and oil-seeds are common 
elements of all Indian agriculture. Professor Wallace, in his 
recent lecture at Edinburgh, very properly pointed out that the 
balance of the soil in European agriculture is largely preserved 
through the rotation of leguminous crops with cereals. He 
seems to have formed, however, a too gloomy opinion as to the 
degree to which this fact was being lost sight of in the agri- 
\0h. XXIV. — s. S. ^ c 
