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38 Flora and Fauna Vegetation and Food-products.—The uncertainty and scantiness of rainfall, the average of which is not more than 15 inches a year, mostly received in winter and early spring, play an important part in the agricultural life and economic development of the country. A good rainfall naturally affects not only the amount of dry cultivation, called the Lalmi, which depends entirely on spring rains, but it also affects the irrigated crop, called Abi, and the spring-streams and Karezes (sub terranian channels). In the greater part of the country there are two harvests; the one reaped in summer, called Bahari or the spring-crop, is the result of autumn sowing, and includes wheat, barley, and certain varieties of peas and beans. The second harvest, called Tirmahi or Autumnal, is gathered in autumn from a spring sowing, and includes crops of rice, Indian corn, varieties of millet, mash (phascolous mungo), tobacco, turnips, and maize, besides other grains of less importance. The loftier regions, such as Hazarajat, Kabul, Asmar and Badakhshan, yield but one harvest. In addition to these cereals, crops of madder, cotton, clover, hemp and lucerne, are very largely cultivated, clover, trefoil and lucerne from important fodder crops, and when properly irrigated, are said to afford ten to twelve cuttings in the season. They are given green to the cattle during summer, and a large quantity is dried and made into wisps to be used in winter. Green lucerne is given to horses, mules and cattle, sometimes alone, and sometimes chopped and mixed with chaff. Great care is necessary in judging the proper quantity of green lucerne to be given to cloven-footed animals, as they relish it so much that they often over-eat and burst, unless promptly