38 
On the CoTidUions of Wheai-Orowing in India. 
cbaracters of the species or races of wheat grown, and the 
relation these bear to the peculiar climates and chemical nature 
of the soils under which they are grown. To attempt to 
introduce a wheat of characteristics widely different from the 
data thus obtained would only be to court failure. 
There are no special modifications of the methods of 
ploughing, sowing, reaping, thrashing, or winnowing that call 
for very special mention : except the fact that in many districts, 
instead of reaping by means of a sickle, the plants are pulled 
out by the root. A much more complete and scientific rotation 
is followed, however, as we have shown above, and manure is 
more fully appreciated and more extensively used in Bombay 
than in Panjab agriculture. The whole system, however, of 
wheat-production is even less scientific, and certainly less 
careful, than that pursued in the Panjab. The drill plough 
seems to be universally employed. 
5. North-West Provinces and Oudh. 
It is scarcely necessary to dwell at any great length on the 
wheat of these provinces, since the account given by Messrs. 
Duthie and Fuller in their well-known work published by 
Government on the " Field and Garden Crops of the North- 
West Provinces " contains practically all that is known. It is 
much to be regretted that a similar brief abstract has not been 
prepared for each province. We shall extract from the " Field 
and Garden Crops " some of the more noteworthy facts, and 
bring these up to date, when necessary, from more recent 
publications. 
" The countless varieties and sub-varieties of wheat which are grown in 
these provinces speak volumes for the importance of the part which it plays 
in the agriculture of the country. It is only witli rice that we find anything 
like the differentiation which years of natural and artificial selection have pro- 
duced in wheat. The most convenient primary subdivisions of wheat is into 
starchy and glutinous, or soft and hard, the former containing a larger propor- 
tion than the average of starch, and being thus especially fit for the production 
of fine flour {maida), while in the wheats of the latter class gluten predominates, 
rendering the grain especially productive of semolina (saji). Grains of the 
first class break easily, with an opaque pure-white fracture, whilst those of the 
second class are diflicult to break or bite, and appear more or less translucent." 
This distinction we have assumed to be fully understood, and 
hence have continued to speak of hard and of soft wheats 
without defining them. The above passage fully specifies the 
practical and chemical peculiarities implied. 
The growth of flour-mills in Bombay, and the immense 
importance of saji as an article of food throughout India, makes 
it necessary to explain that saji is the granular meal obtained 
