24
Meerut District.
This is situated in the tract of country known as the Upper Duáb. It is bounded on the north by
the Muzaffarnagar District, on the east by the Ganges, on the west by the Jumna and on the south by
the Bulandshahr District.
It comprises an area of about 2,353 square miles, with a population of 1,273,914 souls, or 541 to
the square mile.
It is divided into 6 tahsils, viz., Meerut, Hapur, Ghaziabad, Bagpat, Sardhana, and Mawana.
The whole district presents a level alluvial plain, without any hills or even eminences of any
magnitude, the elevation ranging from 690 feet in the south to 770 feet in the north. The average
rainfall for 9 years was 27.53 inches, but it varies in different years from 17 to 37 inches. There are
no usar plains in the district, and the comparative absence of the saline efflorescence ' reh ' is very
marked. The Ganges Khádir is very wide and some eight to ten thousand cattle are occasionally
grazed on it during the year, but not in the rainy season.
The principal rivers of the district are the Ganges, Jumna and Hindan, and there are three main
lines of canals, the eastern Jumna, the main branch of the Ganges, and Anúpshahr branch of the
Ganges canal.
The district is not subjected to floods to any great extent and is one of the healthiest in India.
The average rainfall varies from 17.3 to 37.96 inches, with a mean of 26.5 inches, for the years
1844-45 to 1871-72.
Cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, horses and donkeys are the domestic animals kept in this district.
The breed of horses has wonderfully improved during the last fifteen years. Several zamindárs
have fine horses by Arab stallions out of Katha mares and by the stallions of the Government Hápur
Stud out of country-bred mares.
Gaziabad Tahsil.—Surra was prevalent amongst the camels in the village of ' Naoni' in the
Gaziabad Tahsil of this district in October and November 1895. This village is situated in the Jumna
Khadirs, and although the village itself lies very high the surrounding land is flooded in the
rains. There are between 200 and 300 camels in the village, and of these 30 or 40 had died, when the
report was made, out of 60 odd attacked. This disease is well known to the people as 'Phitgaya' or
' Purana'. They do what they can to avoid it by driving camels away to the Bangar lands in the
rains, and watering those which remain at wells only during the rainy season. They attribute the
disease to tank or stagnant water, and do not water their animals at open places until the water has
stood for a considerable time and become ' pakka'. They consider that the disease is very contagious.
The diagnosis is most surely made by the smell of the urine, which becomes very offensive. There are
paroxysms, during which the animals do not feed, and free periods.
The disease often runs its course very slowly, lasting for years. Sick animals are isolated from
healthy ones.
Muzaffarnagar District.
This lies immediately south of the Saharanpur District, is bounded on the east and west by the
Ganges and the Jumna, and on the south by the Meerut District. It has an area of 1,645 square miles,
with a population of 690,107 souls, or 419.5 to the square mile, and is from 760 to 830 feet above sea
level.
It is divided into four tahsils, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Jansath, and Budhana: and from its physical
features may be divided into four tracts, viz. :—the valley of the Ganges ; the tract between the Ganges
and the West Kalinadi, watered by the Ganges canal ; the Kali Hindan Duáb; and the tract to the west
of the Hindan, bordering upon the Jumna, and partly watered by the eastern Jumna canal.
Along the Solani river from north to south lies an almost continuous swamp fed by the overflow
from the river and by percolation from the Ganges canal, which has ruined many villages. In other
parts of the district, also, village after village has been injured by increasing marsh formed from perco-
lation from the canal.
The western tract between the Hindan and Jumna rivers is, as a rule, low, and in the rains is often
inundated towards Kandhla on the south, and Jhanjhana on the north-west. The district is in places
injured by the appearance of reh (impure carbonate of soda) due to over saturation and by the overflow
of rivers in the time of flood.
The climate resembles that of Saharanpur, but the rainfall is less, being to the greater distance
from the hills. The average heat is decidedly greater than in Saharanpur, though perceptibly less than
at Meerut, only half a degree south. The average rainfall for the eleven years 1860-61 to 1870-71
ranges from 15.l to 39.4 inches.
The chief epidemic cattle diseases of the district are rinderpest (mahámi chera), foot-and-mouth
disease (rora, akráo, dephora), and pleuro pneumonia (piphri) which mostly prevail in the district towards
the end of the rainy season.