376 NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES AND OUDH. General Remarks.—Of the total area, less than half is returned as fit for cultivation, including all the poorer kinds of soil. In many Districts the uncultivated land does not exceed the quantity required for grazing. The true waste or uncultivable area comprises rivers, lakes, village sites, and roads. Large areas of úsar (or land which a saline efflorescence renders unfit for the production of anything but special kinds of coarse grass) are to be found in most of the Districts of the Doáb, said to be caused by percolation from the canals. The rain fall in the North-Western Provinces averages over the whole area 25 inches in the year. But it is almost entirely confined to three or four months, and a very general resort to artificial irrigation is thus rendered necessary. If the crops sown and reaped in the rainy season be excluded, 2 acres out of every 5 in the North-Western Provinces are irrigated, more than one-half from wells. The remainder depends in about equal proportions on canals and on natural sources of irrigation, such as tanks and streams. Large areas, including nearly all the land immediately round the village sites, bear two crops in the year, and as many as three are not unknown Sugar is exceptional, as it occupies the field nearly the whole year, being put down in April, and not fully reaped till the end of February. The common practice of mixing several crops in one field makes it difficult to give an accurate representation of the area under each. The whole country is parcelled out into villages, each village being a proprietary unit, and containing perhaps many inhabited sites. The land is divided by the natives themselves into three circles, according as it approaches or recedes from the central homestead, and receives much manure, only a moderate supply, or none at all. The distinction is very real, and easily recognised by a trained eye. The amount of manure available is very limited, and the continued fertility of the soil, in spite of constant cropping, is difficult to explain. The condemnation often passed on native methods of tillage is too sweeping. The implements, it is true, are of the rudest kind, but the perseverance of the cultivator compensates in a great measure for the imperfections of his tools. Although a single ploughing may merely scratch the surface, the twelve or fifteen ploughings which are commonly given for the more valuable crops produce a tilth which for depth and fineness might be envied by any English market gardener, and is superior to ordinary cultivation in Europe. Wheat.--The most important of the food-grains is wheat, and of recent years the North-Western Provinces and Oudh have become prominent rivals with the other wheat-producing and wheat-exporting countries of the world. The area under wheat in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh in 1882–83 was 3,567,586 acres, the principal centres of cultivation being Saláranpur, Meerut, and Muzaffarnagar
