On the Conditions of Wheat-Growing in India. 19 
oil the ra&i crops ; for these the land is elaborately ploughed, 
weeded, and fairly well manured. For the /i7i aivy crops the land 
is little more than scratched, and the seed sown with the first 
shower of rain. It is a common practice to allow rahi lands to 
remain fallow during the kharif season, or at most to sow on the 
patches nearest the homestead some of the pulses required by 
the cultivator. When this course is departed from, cotton or 
sugar-cane is grown on these lands, the latter as a rule preced- 
ing wheat. The study of the crops grown in India will reveal 
the fact that, unless desired to lie fallow, no portion of a fairly 
well watered farm of good average soil need remain long without 
crops. The cultivator has at his disposal hot season, rainy 
season, and cold season crops that take varying periods, from 
two to twelve months, to mature. Hence it follows that in the 
intervals between rahi and Marif a third crop is frequently 
obtainable. 
In large portions of India, however, the want of water 
compels the farmer to be dependent on the minor crop — 
■ Jiharif — since that is sown with the advent of the rains. 
During that season the chief food-stuffs of the bulk of the 
people are grown — millets and pulses. From a commercial 
point of view these are less important than wheat, rice, and oil- 
seeds ; but collectively they are more extensively grown than all 
the other crops. Cotton is a liliarif crop, but it requires rich 
land, while the millets luxuriate on the lighter loams. A soil 
that yields two crops a year is known as dofasli, while ekfasli 
bears but one crop. 
The twice cropping of the soil is the element that has intro- 
duced the apparent confusion in the returns of Indian agri- 
culture. It has been triumphantly shown, in derision of Indian 
returns, that the land under crops was greater than the area of 
the district or province. This same fact of twice cropping the 
soil introduces a complexity which renders it difiicult to deter- 
mine with absolute certainty the exact area under certain crops. 
Two different forms of rice are, for example, mixed and sown at once over 
the same field, or the one is sown or transplanted into the field after the 
other has germinated. The two grow together; but the one reaching 
maturity long before the othei-, the field is cut — a process which seems only 
to make the second crop sprout more thickly. Without any further labour 
a second crop is shortly after harvested from the same field. 
In the same way two or moi"e different crops are mixed, 
because of the one assisting the other to combat climatic dis- 
advantages ; and for this further reason, that should failure 
overtake the one, the other may yield a return. Experience 
has established the necessity for this with certain soils, and 
under peculiar climatic conditions. Loud complaints have been 
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