Jndian Agriculture in its Physical Asjpecis. 51 
taking frequently the place of bullocks as plough cattle. The 
Bengali, clever as he is intellectually, is a poor specimen physi- 
cally, when put by the side of a Sikh from the Punjab, or even a 
North- West raiijat. 
The bearing of an uncertain rainfall on the possibility of 
famine, and the determining of means to prevent it, are most 
important points. It is neither in the wettest nor, singular as 
it may appear, in the driest tracts, that there is the greatest 
danger of famine. In the former, as also on the moisture- 
holding black cotton-soil, there is always certainty of sufficient 
water; in the di'iest tracts, again, the raiyat will never venture 
on growing a crop unless he is certain of having water enough. 
But the really precarious districts are those in which there is just 
the chance of enough rain coming to induce the cultivator to 
venture on sowing a crop ; for, should the i^ain not come or not 
continue, there will be a total failure of the crop, and scarcity 
will result. If this be followed by a second failure, what is 
known as famine will set in. Happily, the Government have 
wisely foreseen that it is these precarious tracts which most need 
the extension to them of means of irrigation ; and happily, too, 
the expansion of the railway system enables the quick transmis- 
sion of stores of grain. What, however, is still to fear, is, first, 
that a famine may come in any part before even the authorities 
are aware of it, for they are so few and so widely scattered, while 
the people themselves will never complain, but bear their mis- 
fortunes in silence ; secondly, the simultaneous occurrence of 
famine in different regions, for, there being no stored reserves of 
grain in the country, it is only possible to imagine how direful 
in its effects such a calamity must of necessity be. 
Next to people and climate, a word more must be said about 
the soil than has already been included. But little is known 
about it beyond what the cultivator liimself knows practically. 
The main geological t}^Des are few, but the local subdivisions 
are many, and for each of these the raiyat has his particular 
name, and the knowledge of what it will best produce. There 
are no peaty soils, nor anything akin to our gravels, oolite or 
chalk soils, nor yet to our hea\"y clays, but there are the vast 
plains of alluvium ali-eady referred to, the singular black cotton- 
soil, and subsoils composed of a concretionary kind of limestone 
known as kankar. Classification of the soil according to its 
capabilities is the system on which assessment of the land 
revenue (for the Government is practically in the position of 
landlord) is based, and this is modified according to the various 
local circumstances, the facilities for irrigation, &c. In a 
country where irrigation plays so important a part, the relation 
E 2 
