North Central Panjáb Plain.—The best soils and the finest tillage are to be found in the North Central Zone. Gujrát has been included in it, though it has also affinities in the north with the North-West area, and in the south with the South-Western plain. The rainfall varies from 25 to 35 inches. One-third of the cultivated area is protected by wells, and the well cultivation is of a very high class in Ludhiána and Jalandhar, where heavily manured maize is followed by a fine crop of wheat, and cane is commonly grown. In parts of Siálkot and Gujrát the well cultivation is of a different type, the area served per well being large and the object being to protect a big acreage of wheat in the spring harvest. The chief crops in this zone are wheat and charí. The latter is included under "Other Fodder" in Tables III and IV.
North-Western Area.—The plateau north of the Salt Range has a very clean light white sandy loam soil requiring little ploughing and no weeding. It is often very shallow, and this is one reason for the great preference for cold weather crops. Kharíf crops are more liable to be burned up. Generally speaking the rainfall is from 15 to 25 inches, the proportion falling in the winter and spring being larger than elsewhere. There is, except in Pesháwar and Bannu, where the conditions involve a considerable divergence from the type of this zone, practically no canal irrigation. The well irrigation is unimportant and in most parts consists of a few acres round each well intensively cultivated with market-gardening crops. The dry crops are generally very precarious. In Mianwálí the Indus valley is a fine tract, but the harvests fluctuate greatly with the extent of the floods. The Thal in Mianwálí to the south of the Sind Ságar railway is really a part of the next zone.
The South-Western Plains.—This zone contains nine districts. With the exception of the three on the north border of the zone they have a rainfall of from 5 to 10 inches. Of these six arid districts, only one, Montgomery, has any dry cultivation worth mentioning. In the zone as a whole three-fourths of the cultivation is protected by canals or wells, or by both. In the lowlands near the great rivers cultivation depends on the floods brought to the land direct or through small canals which carry water to parts which the natural overflow would not reach. In the uplands vast areas formerly untouched by the plough have been brought under tillage by the help of perennial canals, and the process of reclamation is still going on. The Thal is a large sandy desert which becomes more and more worthless for cultivation as one proceeds southwards. In the north the people have found out of late years that this unpromising sand can not only yield poor kharíf crops, but is worth sowing with gram in the spring harvest. The expense is small, and a lucky season means large profits. In Dera Ghází Khán a large area of "pat" below the hills is dependent for cultivation on torrents. The favourite crop in the embanked fields into which the water is diverted is jowár.
The South-Eastern Plains.—In the south-eastern Panjáb except in Hissár and the native territory on the border of Rájputána, the rainfall is from 20 to 30 inches. In Hissár it amounts to some 15 inches. These are averages; the variations in total amount and distribution over the months of the year are very great. In good seasons the area under dry crops is very large, but the fluctuations in the sown acreage are extraordinary, and the matured is often far below the sown area. The great crops are gram and mixtures of wheat or barley with gram in the spring, and bájra in the autumn, harvest. Well cultivation is not of much importance generally, though some of it in the Jamna riverain is excellent. The irrigated cultivation depends mainly on the Western Jamna and Sirhind canals, and the great canal crops are wheat and cotton. This is the zone in which famine conditions are still most to be feared.
In the Panjáb as a whole about one-third of the cultivated area is yearly put under wheat, which with bájra and maize is the staple food of the people. A large surplus of wheat and oil-seeds is available for export.
Fig. 52. Carved doorway.