26 On the Co'iiditio7is of Wheat-Gh'Oiving in India. 
In specially hunting up tlie information on tlie Panjab, we 
tave selected a few of the more important districts (in wheat 
supply), as set forth in the report drawn up in London on the 
set of specimens to which reference has been made, as well as 
in other reports. We have been guided in our selection by the 
merit of the wheats alone, and from no desire to single out the 
districts that might most fully bear out one of the lines of 
argument pursued — namely, that there are immense tracts of 
country which await a supply of water and means of communi- 
cation to become great wheat-producing districts. 
It will be necessary to go into some detail under the head 
of Panjab, for so much exists in common to all the wheat-pro- 
ducing districts of India, that the more characteristic features may 
be disposed of in one place, leaving only special modifications 
to be commented on afterwards. 
Soils. — In the Panjab, soils may be classified, first, accord- 
ing to the mode in which they are irrigated ; secondly, according 
to their composition. With slight local modifications the re- 
marks which we here offer are applicable to the whole of the 
alluvial parts of India. One of these tracts of country or regions 
with a peculiar soil may predominate more in one province than 
in another ; and in some instances the specific character of the 
soil may be. modified or intensified. The main features are, 
on the whole, preserved. We shall establish, therefore, in this 
place a standard from which, in our subsequent remarks under 
other provinces, we shall record departures and modifications. 
From the numerous mouths of the Ganges, and sweeping 
round the whole length of the Himalayas, at the same time 
isolating the great southern tableland, there extends a vast 
alluvial plain, which is only lost in the North-West Pro'vinces 
and the Panjab by blending into the drainage area of the Indus. 
From this point a similar alluvial region is continued to the 
mouths of the Indus, and may be said to widen until it embraces 
the northern division of Bombay. In the Bengal section of this 
vast expanse, the clay soil of the rice swamps can only be viewed 
as land, figuratively speaking, recently recovered from the sea ; 
and immense portions of it are even now within tidal influence. 
The bulk of Bengal is rain-inundated. Passing higher up 
the allimal basin, evidences of a more ancient soil, indeed of a 
more ancient agriculture, are to be seen in the rich loam of 
Beliar. This soil continues with varying degrees of fertility 
through tlie JSTorth-West Provinces to the Panjab, and down 
the tributaries of the Indus to the basin of the combined stream, 
until it reaches the swamps of the western coast. Throughout 
this loam expanse there are two modifications. First, on the 
inundated tracts of the rivers and on depressed portions of the 
