Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/181

 RAE 173 to. district. Within this belt lies a strip of villages, which, taken all in all, are perhaps the finest in the district, as they are wholly cultivated, and are irrigated nearly altogether from wells, though they get assistance from small ponds. Within these again come the villages among the large jhíls, showing many of then the finest land of all, but intermixed with large waste tracts, of which it is some times very hard to say whether they are barren or culturable. These villages are irrigated mainly from the jbils, whence the water is thrown up upon the fields by manual labour. Pro- ceeding still in a north-easterly direction, we come again to the belt of five villages irrigated from wells, and further on to the sandy, poorer, and broken villages on the banks of the Sai, where irrigation is less resorted The like description will suffice for the surface of the country, still pursuing a north-east line, up to the Gumti. General aspect.---The general aspect of the district is undulating in a slight degree, which, as the country is beautifully wooded, chiefly with mango and mabua groves, gives it a variety which is not often to be observed in the valley of the Ganges. The fertility of the soil is remark- able, and the cultivation being of a high class, the beauty of the country is not to be surpassed by any part of the real plain of Hindustan. Scattered here and there, all over the district and more specially towards the Ganges, are noble trees, generally bargad or pípal. Trees are not how- ever grown for timber. The babúl is not plentiful, and the bamboo is very scarce, while the shishain and the tún, both of which thrive well, and would be a certain revenue from the lands which are too broken for culti- vation, are not to be found in the district, save where planted as orna- mental trees since our occupation of the country. The general appearance of the Rae Bareli district conveys the impression of its being a highly favoured and richly productive tract of country, and as a rule the crops, where there has been careful cultivation, are beavy and probably up to the average of production in the province, but the absence in any quantity of the heavy black, loamy, bog-like soil, found in large quantities in the south-eastern portion of Oudh, is a remarkable feature of this district. Not that this want affects the general fertility of the country, and the reason is obvious, the agricultural implernents in local use are few in number, quickly worn out, and easily broken, the lighter therefore the mate- rial to be worked upon, the less is the expenditure ; nor are the returns less in light than on heavy soils, the suceessful cultivation of which requires the possession of capital. The chief growth on the heavy clay soils of the south-eastern part of Oudh is of rice which is first sowo thickly in small beds, and after it has attained a height of about a foot, the tops of the plants are cut off, and they are planted out in fields which are sur- rounded by mud walls to retain the water, with which they are flooded soon after the rains commence till long after they have ceased, but efforts are seldom made to cultivate these lands for the spring crops; because the clay on them, after a short exposure to even a Novernber gun, becomes as hard as a rock and as dry as a bone, and it is only when thoroughly saturated with water, as during the rainy season, that they