40 
On the Conditions of Wheat-Chviving in Inclia. 
from March to April. As a rule, it is only sown in land that 
was left fallow during the preceding kharif (known as chaumds 
or loiiraT) ; but in highly manured lands near village sites it 
occasionally follows maize, that crop being cut only six or eight 
weeks before the wheat is sown. 
Rotation. — No particular rotation is known to be followed, 
but in tracts where cotton is widely grown, wheat is generally 
said to follow it — probably, however, merely because cotton in 
the kharif, like wheat in the rahi, is the crop which is princi- 
pally grown on the best land of the village (" Field and 
Garden Crops "). In the Meerut district, at least, a very 
elaborate rotation is observed, in which wheat is grown only 
twice in five years. 
The following statement shows the areas of cultivation in 
Oudh at three different periods : — 
Area of the chief Crops op Oudii in Acres. 
Crop 
1879-80 
1881-82 
1885-8G 
1,550,514 
1,747,017 
5,297,417 
295,191 
96,992 
30,200 
1,743,015 
1,863,750 
5,490,417 
241,213 
142,580 
51,113 
2,159,425 
1,556,198 
6,013,995 
314,934 
142,484 
72,030 
The wheat area actually declined in 1883-84 by 458,615 
acres, but increased again in 1884-85 by 70,000 acres. In the 
last year of the table the cultivated area increased over that of 
the preceding year by 112,000 acres, of which twenty per cent, 
was rice, and sixty per cent, oil-seeds. Since 1879-80, the year 
when the wheat trade assumed some importance, the area under 
food grains (that is, millets and pulses) has increased by nearly 
one million acres, while the area under wheat has declined. In 
the last column the figures given were made to carefully 
separate the returns from twice-cropping, so that in some 
respects the increase is shown a little too high. Of the total 
area under crops, namely, 11,025,802 acres, 2,206,739 yielded 
two crops, which would lower the actual area cultivated to 
8,819,063 acres, since the second crop would increase the supply 
of millets and pulses. 
Methods of Cultivation. — We have little of special import- 
ance to record under this head. The systems we have described 
under the Panjab apply in their full force to the North-AVest 
Provinces. Tlie soil is carefully and frcquoutly ploughed, the 
number varying within wide limits. 
Twenty plougliiiigs arc reported as not uncommon in Gorakbpur, wliile 
two or three arc held sudicient in the black soil of Buadelkhand. Eight 
