Final Report on the Revision of Settlement of the Sirsá District in the Punjáb

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ...and in many fields had to be resown twice or even thrice before the young plants developed sufficiently to retain their hold on the soil; and in the stronger soils a heavy shower of rain falling within two or three davs after sowing made the soil cake so firmly that the young shoots could not force their way through. The people did not fail to make the most of their opportunities to sow as large an area as possible, and the area sown (7,72,858 acres) was larger than had been cultivated for the kharif during the previous six years. Besides the large area which suffered from too much rain at seed-time, a considerable area of crop which started well suffered from want of rain later on to bring it to maturity, as practically no rain at all fell after the end of August. The moisture which the soil had retained sufficed to develope the straw to an unusual degree, and a little rain towards the end of September would have enabled the ear to form well, and we should have had such a bumper crop as Sirsd never saw before; but the premature cessation of the rainfall made the outturn of grain much lighter than might have been expected from the favourable rain at seed-time, except in a few favoured tracts which got some partial showers. In those villages the harvest was really a bumper, even as compared with those of districts generally much more fertile thau Sirsd; but as a rule throughout the district, while the outturn of fodder and straw was far above the average, the grain produce was not so very much better than in an ordinary khauf harvest. Still the contrast between this kharif and that of the previous year was a great one. In 1880 the rains had been almost equally favourable for sowing, but they commenced about a fortnight earlier than in...