— BAL
213
which confine them to the north, inundate the surrounding country far and wide the detritus of the hills. The destruction they occasion is worst on the low-lying lands bordering the Burhi Rdpti, which cliffs,
and deposit
are for miles blinding wastes of white sand. This sand is, however, occasionally varied by a deposit of rich stiff clay, which in a short time amply repays cultivation. It follows that the whole surface of this division of the pargana is being gradually raised, and the low lands which formerly produced fine rice are being converted into wheat and gram fields the proportion of the spring to the autumn and winter crops is being constantly changed to the advantage of the former. The rivers have already been mentioned of them, the Kuwdna is a sluggish, steady stream, prevented by its sloping banks and their thick jungles from doing any damage to the surrounding lands. The Suwawan has not sufficient volume materially to alter the character of the country, but the Rapti and Burhi Rdpti are impetuous torrents, whose low, bare, sandy banks enable them to change their courses every year with a caprice that defies calculation or prevention. Whole villages pass from one side to the other in a single rainy season. There are a few jhils to the south of the Rapti, but hardly any elsewhere, and now here, except in the Kuw^na jungles and the immediate neighbourhood of the capital, is the country well-wooded.
Water is everywhere near the surface, and is struck at an average depth of not more than ten feet. Small kachcha wells can be made at the expense of a rupee, and in the stiffer soils will sometimes last for two seasons, but, except for poppy and other garden crops, they are rarely used, as rain usually falls in the middle or at the end of February, and the excess of water ruins crops that have been artificially irrigated earlier. For drinking purposes, square wells lined with planks of wood can be constructed for Rs. 10, and will last from fifteen to twenty-five years.
The principal agricultural products are winter rice and various kinds of chik peas, while fair wheat crops are grown all over the pargana, and autumn rice is very common. Lahi, a description of mustard used for making oil, is largely raised for exportation, and yields a very valuable return to the minimum of labour. The number of acres under each of these crops is
as follows
Winter
rice rice
Autumn ^/*™ Masiir
45,640 23,030
„
-
_
Wheat
??'^^^] 35,200 ' 11,700) 23,730
10,U5
Lahi
186,000 acres, leaving 66,000 acres, or about 27 per cent, of the whole, uncultivated. Thirty-three thousand acres or not quite 18 per cent, of the cultivation, is under two crops. The tillage is not usually of a high class, and the small proportion of the population to the total area, combined with the natural productiveness of the soil, leads to the practice of roughly breaking up outlying fields with the spade and sowing them scantily with inferior grains, such as gram and As a napeas, the cultivator being remunerated by the smallest return. tural consequence, rents are almost always in kind, money never being paid except for the few highly manured fields round the homestead, which are devoted to poppy or vegetables, or very rarely a poor sugarcane crop.
The
total area
under cultivation
is
