28 
On the Gonditions of Wlieat-G^'owing in India. 
2. Dakar or chamb, heavy clayey loam, too low for being drained. This 
is good for rice and grain. The term rdkar in the Panjab denominates bad 
ddkar, on which rice only can be grown. 
3. Rausli or dosahi (dushdhi) is the light easily pulverised loam which 
•we have spoken of as the most prevalent in Upper India. This yields all 
crops except rice. It is soft and easily worked, mixes readily with manure, 
and consists of clay and sand. It is probable that the term dosahi denotes 
a slightly inferior quality of rausli with more sand ; just as rohi would 
appear to be a rich soil approaching to ddkar, only well drained. Rohi is 
admittedly the finest form of soil in the Panjab. 
4. Bhur or maira is light sandy loam, suitable for the cultivation of 
millets. In this soil the sand predominates over the clay, and tiba is almost 
pure sand, reti being a soil with wind-blown hillocks of sand. 
Other terms are used in the hill tracts of the Panjab, and 
nearly every province has special terms for local modifications 
of the soils we have indicated. As such names can be of little 
interest to persons not residing in India, we shall accept the 
above as conveying a general description of the characteristic 
soils of the alluvial basin of India. A separate account will be 
found under the Central Provinces of the soil, terrestrial cha- 
racter, and peculiarities of the southern tableland. From what 
has been said, a general idea, it is hoped, has been conveyed of 
the character and fruitfulness of the soils of the plains of India. 
The absence of a water-supply will, of course, make the best 
rausli land entirely dependent on the rains, and the inequality 
and insufficiency of the rains of the Panjab leave neighbouring 
tracts either uncultivated or at most only occasionally thrown 
under crops. This is the field for the future operations of the 
canal engineer. A judicious control over the supply of canal 
water has made these arteries carry life and fertility where 
formerly rich undulations of fertile soil bore only a scanty 
herbage. Where artificial aid, in the form of canals, is not 
brought to the cultivator, it will be seen, from the account of 
soils, that there are narrow limits within which displacement of 
crops can be practised. 
The climate prescribes a limit to the rahi as to the Txharif 
crop. The varied nature of the soils is such that a second check 
is given to the dangerous disturbance of established and natural 
conditions of agriculture through any greed the cultivator might 
manifest in desiring to reach a hand forward to the hard cash 
offered by an export trade like that of wheat. The extent to 
which the owner of a dc»ija or hangar farm can supplant millets 
with wheat must depend on a chapter of accidents : the abun- 
dance of water in his wells (even should he possess such), the 
rainfall, the proximity of his fields to the irrigation canals, the 
character of the soil on which his labours from year to year have 
been expended. Should his fields fall under the class we have 
defined a bhiu\ then, without manuring to an extent which 
