Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/418

410 SUL of horned cattle, the buffalo excepted, is similarly lows the supply of the better sort of these animals is kept up by importation. Horses may often be purchased of itinerant dealers who pay occasional visits to most towns of any consequence; but the husbandmar who wishes to renew his team of oxen generally prefers to undertake a journey to one of the great cattle depôts and there make his own selection. Nánpára, Dhaurahra, and Khairigarh are the places he most commonly resorts to. There are three descriptions of produce," says a French writer, * " which man may demand from cattle besides the manure, the hide, and the offal, namely, their labour, their mill, and their flesta. Of these three the least profitable is the first.........." The French agriculturist requires labour from his cattle in preference to everything else; the British agriculturist looks chiefly to the milk and the meat; the Indian agriculturist, different from both, contents himself with the labour of the ox and the milk of the cow; it is only where non-Hindu communities reside that the flesh of those animals becomes a source of profit. Their hides indecd, in the first place, supply all local wants, and any surplus there may be is carried to some neighbouring bazar, to be thence forwarded directly or indirectly to Calcutta or Bombay, and forms an infinitesimal quota of the immense num- ber annually exported from those places. The labour demanded from the ox is to carry the packsaddle and draw the cart and plough. of sheep and goats large flocks are often kept with the principal object of obtaining the valuable manure they afford. When used for this pur- pose they are folded on the land the manure is required for, and the owner receives bis remuneration in kind; a goat or sheep being thought fair return for the loan of the flock for a night. The goat is further useful for its milk and the sheep for its wool, which is manufactured into coarse blankets for the wear of the village population. Both of these animals are slaughtered to a limited extent for food. The indulgence is sometimes, indeed, restricted to festival occasions, and even then is invested with a sacrificial character; but if it is not more common, it arises as much from the comparative expensiveness of the diet as from the vegeta- rian propensities of the Hindus. Orimate. The clinate, judged by a tropical lor sub-tropical standard, is mild, temperate, and healthy. From October to June westerly winds prevail, and during the first four of those months are dry, cold, and bracing; more particulukly after rain, of which there is almost invariably a slight fall about Christmas. Towarks the end of February they begin to increase in force, their temperature becoming higher, and by the end of March, if pot earlier, the hot winds usually set in. These, however, are much less trying than they are in many places further to the west. They do not begin for some hours after day-break, and seldom last long after dark, while they occasionally cease for several days together. In these intervals, which become more and more frequent as the hot weather progresses, a north-east wind takes its place. About the middle of June the rainy season commences, and with occasional breaks of greater or less duration conti- nues till the end of September or beginning of October, sometimes, but Rural Dconomy of England, 31. à