July 2, 1883.J 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



SI 



for the plough. A great deal of the Aumon is sown 

 broadcast, and once it gets a fail- start above ground, it 

 will run a race against inundation, and beat it. Abul 

 Fuzl, Akbar's celebrated minister, has declared, in the 

 " Ayin Akbari," that this rice could sprout six inches in a 

 night. I hardly like to endorse this dictum, but I think 

 it very Ukely that it grows a couple of inches in that 

 short space. Inundation of long continuance ruins it, but 

 I have known it to be twelve hours under water, and 

 then emerge without injury; aud it is quite certain that 

 if the water, whether rain alone or inundating river, 

 will only rise gi-adually and not with a sudden rush, the 

 rice plauts wiU hold their own, aud result in a magni- 

 ficent crop. The length to which the stalks grow is 

 surprisuig. I have pulled them fourteen feet in length, 

 aud am assm-ed that they reach to eighteen. As the 

 water recedes or falls this rice Ues slanting on its sur- 

 face ; aud a crop of Aumon rice in one big sheet, towards 

 the end of November, presents the appearance of having 

 been beaten down flat by some \-iolent storm of wind 

 and rain. A spectator, fresh from England, would imagine 

 it ruined, a httle experience teaches him that the crop, 

 flat, tangled, white for the harvest, with a foot or two 

 of water yet below it, and the blue sky, warm sun and 

 pure air of December above, is in that condition described 

 in the Vii-gUian hexameter, "Votis demum respondet 

 avari Agricolse." But the whole of the Aumon crop is 

 not sown broadcast. A lai-ge portion is called roa (from 

 !-(7)«)j, planting), and is planted out with the hand. A 

 nursery is first selected near the cultivator's house, aud 

 sometimes in his kitchen garden, where the rice is sown 

 as thickly as the ground can hold it, or the stalks can 

 stand together: when this nursery has attained to at 

 least the height of ten or twelve inches, it is taken out 

 to be planted in rows in the rj'ot's field. To this end 

 the field has been well ploughed, scraped, and cleaned. I 

 have watched the .same process in Oeylon. It is essential 

 that it sliould hold from a foot to two or thi'ee inches 

 of water, or at least of that mixture of mud and water 

 which is popularly denominated slush. I have seen this 

 work performed ui water two feet deep, the ryot doing 

 it from his boat ; but usually the cultivator wades and 

 sticks the plants in, with the utmost rapidity, in long even 

 lines. In the first few <lays the transplanted rice wears 

 a pale, sicldy, weak appearance ; but in a short time, with 

 the water at its roots, and the suu striking its blade and 

 incipient ear, the plants raise themselves upright, and 

 become green and hvely. At an agricultmal lectiu'c, I 

 may be pardoned for agaiu quoting from the greatest poet 

 of agricultm-e. The great Roman poet would have said 

 that they were amazed at theii- own strength and magni- 

 ficence. 



"NuUo tantum se My.sia cultii 

 Jactat, et ipsa suos mirantur Gargara messes." 



80 much, fii'st, for the Aoos, with its simple and uniform 

 cultvu'e; and next, for the Aumon, divided into the crop 

 sown broadcast, anil the crop planted out mth the hand. 

 There remains the Boru, and my remarks on this head 

 will be brief, as this variety is only growm to a limited 

 extent, on the edge of those huge swamps of which men- 

 tion has been once or twice made. A\'hcre the swamps 

 never (hy up, .and there is no other way of utiUsing the 

 soil, the Boru rice is planted in January, or as late as 

 March, just when all other harvest occupations are at an 

 eud, aud being fed regularly ivitb water, which can be 

 danmied up or easily conducted by simple macliinery, 

 from one plot to another, the rice is rij)e before May. 

 The fiercest heat never injures rice, provided there is 

 water to keep the roots wet. 



I should explain further, that though the cidtivation 

 of rice is Umited to three kinds, the varieties of the 

 grain are much more numerous. Mr. Hunter, iu one of 

 his recent statistical works, states that tliere are some 

 fifty kinds of rice. I can easily extend that list, and so 

 could many other public servants. From a manuscript of 

 ray own, taken many years ago, I find that in one dis- 

 trict alone, Jessore, there were thirty-eight varieties of the 

 Aoos, sixty-two of the Aumon, and six of the Boru. A 

 little practice enables us to distinguish the most prominent 

 varieties as they grow. Some of them have elegant and 

 expressive names. There is the pearl of the suu, the golden 

 lice, the foam of the ocean, the Ganges and the ocean. 



the repast of the king, the supreme repast, the Balam 

 well-known to Eastern epicures, and many others. 



But it will be remembered that though the largest portion 

 of the soil is occupied with the Aumon; that though no 

 second crop is possible from land so cultivated, and that, 

 when the crop is once harvested, the only use to which 

 the soil is put is that of pasturage for the numerous 

 herds of cattle, we have yet to account for the remainder 

 of the year in regard to the Aoos. I have never seen 

 regular pasture set apart for cattle, except in the scrub 

 of Baucoorah aud the West. I have allotted a period of 

 about 110 or 120 days for its seed-time, growth, and harvest. 

 ■What, then, does the ryot do with this land for the other 

 eight or nine months in the year? AVhen his rice crop 

 has been cut and carried, say, in August and September, 

 the last showers of the rainy sea,son may be looked for 

 any time m October. This rainfall is often the turning 

 point of the year. In 1844, and again in 1848, and again 

 in 1851 and in 1862, the population of Bengal was saved 

 from scarcity, possibly from famine, by a timely fall of 

 several inches, which occurred between the first week and 

 the last week of October. Rain is then anxiously looked 

 for, to give the Aumon crop its fullest development. It 

 is also desired to fill the tanks, to prepare the land for 

 what, in Upper India, would be called the Rubbi, or spring 

 crop, aud in Bengal, as I have said, the cold weather crop. 

 The ryot sets to, ploughs up the land from which he has 

 just cut and carried his Aoos, and .sows it with the crop 

 to wliich it is most suited. Amongst the favourite pro- 

 ducts are mustard, linseed, some oats, barley, the species 

 of pidse which the natives call soia and Anglo-Indians 

 gram, millet, dhaly and two or three smaller kinds of 

 vetches. Once the seed is got in while the ground 

 is still moist, there is Uttle more to be done. For the 

 next two months, which, in the Hindu calendar, are the 

 shukira, or dewy season, the dews are heavy and scarcely 

 a drop of rain will faU ; though sometimes in the cold 

 weather, generally at the end of January, a fall of rain, 

 not tropical but rather EngUsh iu its character and duration 

 — for it may last for a couple of days — has the happy 

 effect of laying the dust, of prolonging the moribund cold 

 season of Bengal, and of reWrifying and ripening the cold 

 weather crops. The Bengah have a saying that m the 

 month of Magh — end of January and fii-st half of February 

 — they experience heat, rain, and cold — all the varieties 

 of the year. The plains of Beng.il, for ten months of 

 the year, present features which redeem them from ugli- 

 ness, and which are a plea.sant contrast to the arid, brown, 

 adust, or yellow look of Bchar and Hindustan. Ther.e, 

 the eye is ott'cnded as soon as the crops are oif the 

 ground. From .lime to October, nearly every plain in Bengal 

 is one unbroken sheet of rich, green, rice cidtivation; the 

 small embankments, or cUvisions of heritages and fields, 

 are hidden from the eye by the crops, and from the 

 edge of one village shrouded in fruit trees and bamboos, 

 to the other on the opposite side plain which forms the 

 horizon, half-a-mile, one mile, or perhaps three, foui-, or 

 even five miles off, nothing meets the eye but the even, 

 unbroken sheet of rice. In the winter, one half of a 

 plain may bo white with the late rice crop; the other, 

 higher and drier, is diversified with oats and barley, grauL 

 and vetch; an<l a sweet and delicious perfume from the 

 golden ilower of the mustard iilant is wafted on the 

 breeze to the traveller or sportsman. I hardly ever re- 

 collect seeing wheat grown in Lower Bengal. 



It must not be im.agined that tins brief description ol 

 Bengali agriculture e.vhausts the list. I have .said nothing • 

 about garden land or the higher kinds of produce. Jute, 

 or hemp_is a crop largely grown by substantial ryots or 

 tenant pi-oprietors. It is sown iu spring, and cut in the 

 rains; and then put to soak in tanks, exhaluig a power- 

 and unpleasant odom" and there are two or more kinds 

 of vetches which flourish in the same moist atmosphere, 

 and anticipate the cold weather crop. In some parts ol 

 particular districts much attention is given to pan gardens. 

 These plants, of which the leaf is chewed together with 

 the arecanut, are grown in rows, just hke our raspberries ; 

 but the peculiar featme of this culti\5ation is that the 

 gardens are not only enclosed by mats at the side, but 

 are roofed over by the same material, so as to coucenti-atc 

 heat, and yet exclude the direct .action of the sun. To- 

 bacco is also gi-own in small jilots by the same substantial 



