of Huslavdry in Bengal, 



I 



Irrigation is less neglected than facility of transport. In 

 tlie management of forced rice, daiiis retain the water on 

 extensive plains, or reserve it in lakes, to water lower land;', 

 as occasion rcquncs. For either purpose much skill is ex- 

 erted in regulating' the supplies of water. For the same 

 culture, ridges surrounding the tieid retain water raised by 

 the simple contriviince of a curved canoe swinging from a 

 pole. In other situations ridges are also raised round the 

 field, both to separate lands and to regulate the water on 

 considerable tracts. In some provinces water raised by 

 cattle, or by hand, from wells, supplv the deficiencies of 

 rain. Each cf these, being within their compass, is the 

 undertaking of the peasants themselves. More considerable 

 works, not less necessary, are much neglected. Reservoirs, 

 water-courses, and dykes, are more generally in a progress 

 of decay than of improvement. 



The succession of crops, which engages so much the at- 

 tention of enlightened cultivators in Europe, and on which 

 principally rests the success of a well-conducted husbandrv, 

 is not understood in India. A course extending beyond 

 the )ear has never been dreamt of by a Bengal farmer : in 

 the succession of crops within the year, he is guided to no . 

 choice of an article adapted to restore the land impoverished 

 by a former crop. His attention being fixed on white corn, 

 other cultivation only emplovs the intervals of leisure which 

 the seasons of white corn allow to the land and to labour; 

 with an exception however to sucar, silk, and other valuable 

 productions, to which corn is secondary ; but which, grov.n 

 on appropriate lands, belong not to the consideration of the 

 course of crops. In this, which is not regulated by any 

 better consideration than convenience of time, it v.'ould be" 

 superfluous to specify the different courses which occur in 

 practice : as little would it tend to any useful purpose to 

 develope the various combinations of different articles grown 

 together on the same field, or in the stubble of a former 

 harvest, or sovi^n for a future crop before the preceding 

 harvest be gathered. 



A competent notion maybe formed of this practice by 

 conceiving a farmer eager to obtain the utmost possible pro- 

 duce from his land, without any consideration for the im- 

 poverishment of the soil ; able to command, at any season, 

 some article suited to the time, and not content to use his 

 field so soon as the harvest makes room for succession, l)ut 

 anticipating the vacancy, or obtaining a crop of quick ve- 

 getation during the first progress of a slower plant. 



It may be judged that his avidity disappoi,nts itself, both 

 A 4 as 



