Bengal.—The general soil of Bengal is clay, with a considerable proportion of silicious sand, fertilized by various saline minerals, and by animal and vegetable products in a state of decay.
In all the Gangetic lowland, tbe upper layer of a well-raised tract always consists of alluvial mould, but the subsoil is sandy. The rivers which have had the longest course from the hills, deposit mud ; the others leave behind them beds of sand ; but the Ganges forms alternate layers of each. Hence a flood from the Gogra or the Sarju is injurious to the fields, while an inundation of the Ganges benefits the crops. Lands that are annually inundated or are thrown up by the action of rivers, are of various clegrees of fertility, according as mould or sand predotninates ; where the sand preponderates, the mixed autumn crops, such as wheat and barley, or peas and grain, are largely sown. Where clays abound, as iu the mattiara soil, and the fields are low-lying, the different pulses grow well. The tamarisk and thatch grass which grow on the alluvial lands near Faizabad or Allahabad, often yield as good a return as grain crops. An average acre of such manjha lands produces 150 bundles of aticks, of which the cutters and the propiietor share equally.
'Where the lands in Bengal are good, and water abundant, three, or, as in Dinajpur, four crops are obtained.
Cachar has a rich alluvial soil, formed from the washin,g of the mouniains which bound it on three sides, drained by the Barak or Soorma river, which deposits large quantities of silt. Teelah, in Assam, and Cachar, are low ranges of hillocks covered with dense tree forest, intermatted with reeds, grasses, canes, and creepers.
In East Otalh and in the I3enares districts, the loams are called doras or domat and kapsa doras. In Gorakhptir the doras is called banger. The best is tbe doras. The kapsa doras contains more adhesive clay, and gives less produce. Both these soils take much manure, irrigation, and labour, but produce two crops, and of every variety.
Mattiyar is the prevailing name of the soil of Oudh, Jounpur, Azimgarh, Gorakhpur, and Basti. It embraces all good argillaceons earth, from the brown to the black hurnic or relmic deposit found iu the beds of tanks, but the black soil of Bundel khand is also known by this name. It is of a darker. colour than doras, is more capable of absorbing and retaining moisture; is slippery when wet, very hard when dry, and is seldom manured. It is tile finest natural soil, and its
yield is equal to the doras and kapsa doras together. Mattiyar is arranged into kapsa mat tiyar, this being again classed as kapsa uparwar and kapsa kalar. It also includes karail (black) and bijar. Mattiyar kandl is found in the beds of tanks and jliils. Mattiyar kapsa khalar is sitnilar to mattiyar, but has orange-colortred &pots, and hence called kahis and sandurya. Its yield is less. Mattiyar uparwar kapsa lies at a higher level. and yields less.
Bijar is as hard as mattiyar, but intermixed with very fine gravel. It resembles the user soil ; but usar produces reit. or sajji in the dry season, which bijar does not yield. Only different kinds , of rice are sown in it, and even these only when the inattiyar is unusually abundant. So well does I the inattiyar retain moisture in Gorakhpur, that I indigo sowings go on in March and April, the seed, being commonly rolled in, keep in the moisture. , Mattiyar when irrigated is held to be the most productive of all soils ; when unirrigated perhaps , the worst.
Klialar soils of Cludh are low lands which retain moisture.
The Saharunpur district lands are called adh kach'ha, -pabara, and tarai. The first is between the two last. The Tarai soil is low moist land lying along the river banks.
Rotation.—It is a popular error to think that a double crop in the year is only obtained from the best manured lands, called goind or gowliani. The fact is, wherever the water supply is large in outlying lands, two crops are taken, but, in the N.W. Provinces, the agriculturist is usually con tent with one good heavy rabi or spring crop from the inlying lands. The very best of these last are reserved for wheat, sugar-cane, or poppy. Wheat rnay be grown two or three years running in sach land, but natives are quite alive to the value of rotation of crops, and a very usual change is wheat one year, to be followed by (1) Cytisus cajan as a spring crop, but mixed with it is also sown urd (Dolichos pilosus), koclo (Pas pal= frurnentaceutn), or Sorghum vulgare, as an autumn crop. These last grow quickly, and are cut before the Cytisus cajan has made much progress ; that is then weeded, and the plough run through it, and left to mature in the spring. This rotation rests the land much, as the leaf droppings largely supplement the usual manure.