Climate.—Owing to its sub-tropical position, scanty rainfall and cloudless skies, and the wide expanse of unfilled plains, the climate of the Punjab presents greater extremes of both heat and cold than any other part of India. From the middle of April to the middle of September it is extremely hot, while from the begin ning of October to the end of March there is a magnificent cool season, resembling that of the Riviera, with warm bright days and cool nights. Frosts are frequent in January. In the first three months of the hot season, from April till the end of June, a dry heat is experienced, with a temperature rising to i 20° F in the shade. At the end of June the monsoon arrives, the rains break in the East of the Province, and though the heat is less intense the air is moist, and from the middle of August the tem perature gradually falls. This is the most unhealthy period of the year, being exceedingly malarious. The Punjab enjoys two well marked seasons of rainfall; the monsoon period, lasting from the middle of June till the end of September, on which the autumn crops and spring sowings depend ; and the winter rains, which fall early in January, and though often insignificant in amount ma terially affect the prosperity of the spring harvest. Excepting in the Himalayas the rainfall is greatest in the east of the province, as the Bombay monsoon is exhausted in its passage over the great plains of Sind and Rajputana, while the west winds from Baluch istan pass over an arid tract and leave such moisture as they may have collected on the western slopes of the Suliman range; so that the Punjab depends for its rain very largely on the south-east winds from the Bay of Bengal. The submontane tract has an annual average of 36 to 32 in., the eastern plains vary from 20 to 14 in., and the western plains from 10 to 5 in.
rock-salt, the mineral products of the Pun jab are not many. Limestone, good for building, is obtained at Chiniot on the Chenab and at a few other places. There are ex tensive alum-beds at Kalabagh on the Indus. A small quantity of coal is found in the Salt range in disconnected beds, the Dandot colliery in the Jhelum district being worked by the North-Western railway. Petroleum is found in small quantities at a number of places in Rawalpindi, and there is an oil company extracting oil by modern methods. In almost all parts of the Punjab there is kankar, rough nodular limestone, commonly found in thick beds, a few feet below the surface of the ground, used for road metal and burned for lime.
Agriculture.—As in other parts of India, there are commonly two harvests in the year. The spring crops are wheat, barley, gram, various vegetables, oil-seeds and tobacco; the autumn crops are rice, millets, maize, pulses, cotton, indigo and sugar-cane. Wheat has become the most important export of the province. In the spring of 1906 an area of 81 million acres was harvested, producing 31 million tons. Tea is cultivated in Kangra district. Potatoes are grown extensively on cleared areas on the hills. The Punjab produces freely many of the Indian fruits. Grapes are grown in many of the Himalayan valleys where the rain is not excessive ; but they are inferior to those brought from Kabul.
Forests.—The forest area of the Punjab consists of 9,278 sq.m., of which 1,916 sq.m. are reserved and 4,909 sq.m. protected. The principal reserved forests are the deodar (Cedrus Deodara) and chil (Pinus longifolia) tracts in the hills, the plantations of shi sham (Dalbergia Sissu) and sal (Shorea robusta) in the plains, and the fuel rakhs or preserves (Acacia, Prosopis, etc.).
Manufactures and Trade.—Most of the native manufactures of the Punjab are those common to most other parts of India. Among other manufactures, not so general, yet not peculiar to the Punjab, are woollen fabrics, carpets and shawls, silk cloths and embroidery, jewellery, ornamental metal-work, wood and ivory carving, turned and lacquered woodwork, glazed pottery, arms and armour and musical instruments. But some of these classes of manufacture are represented by work of special kinds or special excellence in particular parts of the Punjab, notably the silk fabrics of Multan and Bahawalpur ; the carpets of Lahore and Amritsar; the kashi or glazed tilework (an ancient art still prac tised in a few places) ; koft-kari, inlaid metal-work (gold wire on steel), chiefly made at Gujrat and Sialkot ; shawls and other fine woollen fabrics, made by Kashmiri work-people at Ludhiana and Nurpur, as well as in Kashmir; silk embroidery for shawls, scarfs and turbans, at Delhi, Lahore and Multan ; embroidery on cloth for elephant-trappings, bed and table covers, etc., at Lahore and Multan ; enamelled ornaments, in Kangra and Multan ; quill em broidery on leather, in Kangra and Simla ; lacquered woodwork, at Pak Pattan. Cotton-weaving gives employment to about a mil lion persons, but the most flourishing industry is the woollen factories of Amritsar, Gurdaspur and elsewhere.
Trade.—The trade of the Punjab is almost wholly dependent upon agriculture. In a normal year the principal feature of the trade is the movement of wheat to Karachi, which is the chief port for the province. But in a bad season, when the rains fail, this movement is at once checked, the wheat is held up in reserve and an eastward movement in cheaper grains begins. The other chief articles of export are pulse and raw cotton. The Punjab has a trans-frontier trade with Kashmir, Ladakh, Yarkand and Tibet on the north, and with Afghanistan on the west.
Irrigation and Railways.—Irrigation for large areas is from canals and from reservoirs, and for smaller areas from wells. The canals are of two kinds : those carrying a permanent stream throughout the year, and those which fill only on the periodical rising of the rivers, the latter being known as "inundation canals." There are only a few parts of the country presenting facilities for forming reservoirs, by closing the narrow outlets of small valleys and storing the accumulated rainfall. The present canal system is probably the finest in the world. The old canals made by the Mohammedan rulers, of which the principal are Feroz's Canal from the Jumna and the Hasli Canal from the Ravi, have been improved or reconstructed by the British government and are now represented by the Western Jumna and Bari Doab Canal. They were followed by the Sirhind Canal (1883) and by the two great Colony Canals, the Lower Chenab and Lower Jhelum (1892– 1901). Then succeeded the so-called Triple Canal Scheme (1912– I 5) comprising the Upper Jhelum, Upper Chenab and Lower Bari Doab Canals. And these again were followed by the Sutlej Valley Canals now under construction. The canals irrigated 101 million acres in 1925-6 and produced a net return of some £3 million, representing about 17% on capital.