Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/313

This page needs to be proofread.

LUC 305 and culturable, where it is best is known as dumat, which etymologically implies a mixture of two earths, heavy and light; the heavy is the clay known as matiár, and the light has a large admixture of sand ; where it is entirely sand it is known as bhúr. The land is generally good, and with manure and water would be all productive. Bhúr or sandy soil ranges along the high banks of rivers. It is met with in the largest proportions in the Lucknow pargana, through the centre of which the Gumti passes; and in Nigohán Sissaindi, a long narrow pargana, washed by the Sai. In Kakori, which is washed by no river, and crossed by insignificant streanis, the bhur shows lowest. But the unculturable is generally of a most intractable kind. The úsar plain has becn already mentioned. It is the same as the usar land that prevails in the Unao district, and of which Mr. Maconochie has given a description and analysis in his report. It is, as far as is known, abso- lutely irreclaimable, and worse, if not scdulously watched and carefully checked by cultivation ; it seems insidiously to creep into the cultivated fields bordering on its margin, amongst the green crops, of which small white patches may be seen, hardly covered by a stunted growth. These plaios present a most sterile aspect, and the only vegetable growth that can be seen on them is a stunted grass which lasts only so long as the rains are still fresh upon the soil. They are of considerable extent, commencing from the centre of the eastern boundary of the Mohanlalganj pargana. They stretch through the district in a westerly direction through Bij- naur, Kákori, and finally disappear into the Unao district. Their effect on many villages is very fatal. Sometimes but a small residue of cultivation out of the whole area is left; but they have also had the effect of materi- ally incrcasing the size of the villages, which average in Bijnaur, the par- gana most fatally affected, 929 acres, being an area almost twice as great as and two-thirds greater than the area of villages in Mahona and Malihabad, the parganas least affected by them. In the Bijnaur pargana the bar- ren land amounts to so much as forty-three per cent of the whole area. Distribution of cultivated, culturable, and barren soil. The following figures will show the amount of cultivated, culturable, and barren land in the whole district. They are-cultivated 54:0, culturable 237, barren 22.3. And the annexed table will show the variations for each par- gana - Name of pargne. Culti. Cultura - Barren. vated, ble. d. Lucknow Bijnaur Kakori Mohanlalganj Nigohán Sigsaindi Mahona Malibabad 57.38 45 25 50-49 6180 31.1 56.14 59 64 19.7 18.29 12.2 26.81 34.19 26-62 26.62 23-55 4346 37.49 81.61 13.80 19.17 18.92 aa 104 DEO