Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/21

 INTRODUCTION.

XI

expected with some certainty are prepared with the assiduous care which wheat cultivation demands. If the rains are unusually favourable large areas will be sown broiadfcast 6h nearly unprepared soil, with the anticipation of only a v6ry small outturn. Large areas, already exhausted by a rice crop, will be sown with a similar expectation, and though sOme "tolerably correct estimate can be made of the extent of land under the two crops, the inferior soils and the careless cultiviattidn adinit neither of being classified nor estimated with any approadh to accuracy, and for this reason it is quite hopeless to endeavour to guess the total produce of any one district or to deduce frdin it the average outturn per acre. The variety of other spring crops is almost infinite. It is then that the principal oilseeds the mustard, the flax, the til, and the castor-oil are gathered in. The gram, whose young leaves are plucked iand prepared like spinach, while its seed afibrdB the best food for horses, and when split and parched the favourite refreshment to wayfarers who have no means of cooking a meal, Another small pulse, the is harvested soon after the wheat. masur, and pease ripen rather earlier, and with barley are the When everything else but cotton earliest crops to be garnered. is off the ground, arhar, a tall bush loaded with pods which contain a seed used as dal, is cut, and with it the agricultural year of labour is at an end for the majority of cultivators, who take a short rest before beginning the ploughings for next year's This plant not only yields a very heavy crop of rice and wheat. valuable seed, reaching iiot uncommonly on a well manured ^dil 3,500tt)S. per acre, but its stalks are of the greatest service in forming a framework for thatches. Large quantities are sown sparsely in fields whose main produce consists of crops which ripen and are cut at an earlier season, such as kodo, Indian-corn, and mdsh, and the outturn in such cases is of course but small. The great drawback to its cultivation is its excessive sensitiveness, and a very slight frost will wither every tree for miles. Round most of the village sites there occXir patches of garden cultivation, where the "murdos" and the "kachhis," the most

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laborious and skilful of husbandmen, raise on a soil highly manured and highly irrigated small but valuable crops of opium, The principal spices are aniseed, spices, vegetables, and tobacco. coriander, cumin, and red pepper, while among the vegetables may be numbered potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, egg-plant, and ghuiydn. Cabbages and cauliflowers have recently been introduced ; they are very popular and occasionally cultivated with

great success.

In the hot months cucumbers and countless