Fig. 48. Persian Wheel Well and Ekka.
Implements of Husbandry and Wells.—The implements of husbandry are simple but effective in a land where as a rule there is no advantage in stirring up the soil very deep. With his primitive plough (hal) and a wooden clodcrusher (sohága) the peasant can produce a tilth for a crop like cane which it would be hard to match in England. There are two kinds of wells, the charsa or rope and bucket well and the harat or Persian wheel.
Rotations.—The commonest rotation in ordinary loam soils is to put in a spring and autumn crop in succession and then let the land lie fallow for a year. Unless a good deal of manure is available this is the course to follow, even in the case of irrigated land. Some poor hard soils are only fit for crops of coarse rice sown after the embanked fields have been filled in the monsoon by drainage from surrounding waste. Other lands are cropped only in the autumn because the winter rainfall is very scanty. Flooded lands are often sown only for the spring harvest.
Fig. 49. A drove of goats—Lahore.
Cattle, Sheep, and Goats.—In 1909 there were in the British districts of the Panjáb 4¼ million bullocks and 625,000 male buffaloes available to draw 2,169,000 ploughs and 288,000 carts, thresh the corn, and work a quarter of a million wells, besides sugar, oil, and flour mills. The cattle of the hills, N.W. Panjáb, and riverain tracts are undersized, but in the uplands of the Central Panjáb and S.E. districts fine oxen are used. The horned cattle share 18 millions of pasture land, much extremely poor, with 4 million sheep and 5½ million goats. Hence the enormous area devoted to fodder crops.
Zones.—Six zones can be distinguished, but, as no district is wholly confined to the mountain zone, it must for statistical purposes be united to the submontane zone:
| (a) (b) | Mountain above 5000 feet Submontane | {Panjáb—Kángra, Simla, Native States in Hills, Ambála, Hoshyárpur. { {N.W.F. Province. Hazára, Kashmír—whole |
| (c) | North Central Plain | Panjáb—Gujrát, Siálkot, Gurdáspur,Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiána, Kapúrthala, Malerkotla, Powádh tract in Phulkian States. |
| (d) | North-West Area | Panjáb—Ráwalpindí, Jhelam,Attock, Mianwálí. N.W.F.P.—Pesháwar, Kohát, Bannu. |
| (e) | South-Western Plains | Panjáb—Gujránwála, Lahore,Sháhpur, Jhang, Lyallpur, Montgomery, Multán, Muzaffargarh, Dera GházíKhán, Baháwalpur. N.W.F.P.—Dera Ismail Khán. |
| (f) | South-Eastern Area | Panjáb—Karnál, Rohtak, Gurgáon,Hissár, Ferozepore, Farídkot, Jangal tract inPhulkian States, Native States territory adjoining Gurgáon and Rohtak. |