24- On the Conditions of Wheat-Growing in India. 
passed, than a temperature is attained quite as great as tlie 
summer heat of other wheat-growing countries. It is this 
circumstance that gives to the Indian wheat its great dryness ; 
but if not fully formed by February, the plant is killed and the 
grain prematurely ripened. 
Having now exhibited some general principles regarding 
Indian agriculture as a whole, we may proceed in detail to 
discuss the wheat-cultivation of the several provinces. 
1. The PanjAb. 
In accordance with a resolution of the Government of India 
in 1877, a collection of the wheats of India was prepared which 
embraced over 1,000 samples. These were forwarded to London 
for the purpose of examination. Dr. Forbes Watson's report, to 
which allusion has been made, was the result. The Panjab 
section was, however, viewed as unsatisfactory from being 
weevil-eaten, and it was therefore suggested that a fresh col- 
lection of Panjab wheats should be made. Further, it was re- 
commended that to test the adaptability of Indian wheats to 
the three systems of milling now in use, 350 maunds of each of 
the four principal varieties should be forwarded to England. 
These two proposals were accepted, and a fresh set of 192 
samples of Panjab wheats were forwarded to London. They 
were examined and valued by the same expert who furnished 
the information regarding the first collection, and the second 
report appeared in 1880. The required commercial samples 
were also forwarded, the result being the appearance of perhaps 
the most powerful report on Indian wheats which has as yet 
been placed in the hands of the public, viz. a commercial state- 
ment of their value and adaptability to the miller, written 
by Messrs. McDougall Brothers, of London. This appeared in 
December 1882. 
The Panjab wheats of the second consignment were, as in 
the first report, grouped into 
(1) Soft white wheats. (3) Soft red wheats. 
(2) Hard white wheats. (4) Hard red wheats. 
Subsequent to the special report on the Panjab wheats, the 
Secretary of State, in 1881, called for information to be furnished 
(for all India) as to the nature of the soils on which the better 
wheats are cultivated, as well as details of the methods of culti- 
vation — as, for example, whether the best wheats are grown on 
irrigated or on manui'ed land, also " whether the land has been 
long cultivated with wheat crops, and what is the average weight 
of crop per acre." Naturally this stimulated fresh and more 
