34 On the Conditions of ^V^^eat-Grow^ng in India. 
for cultivation, namely, 6,389,034; acres, is by no means incon- i 
siderable, but we have no space to deal witli this subject in i 
detail, and must rest satisfied that the examples we have given I 
under the Panjab fully establish the fact that the land declared 
as available for cultivation means actually soil that awaits but 
human labour to throw it under crops. 
The figures on page 11 corroborate a great deal of what we 
have endeavoured to show as to the relative importance of the 
crops. The millets and pulses are infinitely more important 
than wheat or rice. Taking the two principal millets, jowar 
and hajra, these occupy 13,011,036 acres, while wheat and rice 
cover a little less than a third of that area. Indeed, the pulses 
alone occupy more ground than either wheat or rice, but of 
course this would not be apparent to a visitor passing through 
the country during the wheat season, because of the fact that 
they are grown throughout the year, each pecuUar species 
having its own definite season. 
Soils. — The soils of Bombay are much more diversified than I 
in the Panjab. Sind and certain parts of Bombay bordering 
on Sind and Central India possess almost identical soils to those 
we have described, light loams with a tendency to run into a 
superabundance of sand. But in many parts of Bombay a heavy ! 
red soil prevails, containing iron, and in other districts a heavy I 
black soil which gradually approximates to the black cotton soil I 
more immediately characteristic of the Central Provinces (see | 
page 43). Selecting a representative district for each of the 
divisions Gujarat, Deccan, Karnatak, and the Konkan, the 
following abstracts from the Gazetteers and other reports will 
give a general conception of the soils of Bombay : — i 
In the Broach district the soil is said to consist of two iinds, a light soil | 
and a black soil ; hut each of thesu types of soils is capable of subdivision. ; 
The light soil, gorut, (jorudu, or mariva, varies from sand drifts in the south 
to the richest alluvial loam, hhulkn, found in the neighbourhood of the ' 
Narbiida. So in a like manner the hall, or black soils, range from the rich j 
alluvial deposits of the Narbuda, to the regular deep cotton moidd, kdnam, to i 
the shallower and harsher soils, hura, near the sea-coast, on which little else ^ 
but wheat can be grown. These black soils occupy more than three fourths 
of the cultivable area. 
In Nasih, as representing the Deccan, land is primarily classed as hill 
land, ddnyi, and plains, deshi. The former are poor and wholly dependent ; 
on the rains for moisture, and, except the portions devoted to rice, the 
remainder cannot be cultivated for two years consecutively. Of the plains 
land there are said to be four kinds: black kali, red mdl, red and black j 
kordl, and light brown harad. Except in the uplands black soil is deep and 
very rich, and yields excellent cold-weather crops of wheat and gram. 
Red soil is found chiefly on hilly undulations, and yields good rainy season 
crops. The mixed red and black and the light brown soils are much inferior | 
to the other?, and often yield no cro])S at all when the rain is scanty. | 
In llie JSe.I(/atim district of the Karnatak there are .said to be two soils, j 
red and black. The red soils are primary soils — that is, they are th3 direct 
