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25

INDIA

field of well-grown wheat, or deep in rank lucerne ; when
the canals run full with snow-fed streams, and the bordered
bypaths are scented with the willow and adorned with
wild rose and clematis —then is the period of desolation in
the plains of India. The scorching west wind passes over
the northern districts ; every blade of green vegetation
disappears from unirrigated or unwatered spots; grass
tufts grow yellow and stiff in the bare and withered
fields ; only the spreading banian, the pipal, and others
of the genus ficus amongst trees, hold their own against
the universal desiccation,
The hot weather of the Punjab and of the frontier is
the hottest of all hot weathers. Southern Indian heat is
_ tempered by sea breezes,
~ermouam and modified by a tropical
vegetation, but this does
not exist in the north.
Not till the first burst of
rain follows the blinding
dust storms, does the land
wake up to a new birth ;
and then indeed the process
 of wakening is startling
 in its rapidity. Then
again does the labourer
return to the fields with his plough and his oxen, and the
season of agriculture makes a new departure.
It is about the end of June that ploughing begins,
after the earth has been well moistened with the first
rain burst. The summer and autumn crops comprise
chiefly the different kinds of pulse and maize, sugar-cane,
cotton, and indigo. Rice is grown nearly all over India,
but a hot, moist climate is the most suitable for its
production, In Lower Bengal, and in parts of Madras
and Bombay, in Burma and Ceylon, rice is the staple
food of the people. In British Burma and in Lower
Bengal from 80 to go per cent. of cultivated area is
under rice. Elsewhere it is reserved for the consumption
 of the wealthy. But wherever irrigation exists and

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