PROVINCIAL PRODUCTION 



DOLICHOS 



BIFLORUS 



Horse-gram 



Bengal 

 and Assam. 



; 



I 



to devote the entire crop as a green manure. The following brief account, 

 province by province, may be found instructive : 



Bengal and Assam. Horse-gram is very little cultivated in the Lower 

 Provinces. It is said to be grown to a limited extent in Shahabad, and 

 fairly abundantly in ( 'hota Nagpur, both as a grain and a fodder crop, 

 hut not in Lower Bengal. Mukerji (Handbook Ind. Agri., 1901, 5 

 oliserves that the time for sowing kulthi for grain is October or November, 

 and for fodder June, August and November, three times on the same 

 field. It mav be reaped during several months, according to the purpose 

 for which required, but the general harvest is December- January. The 

 ((tiantitv harvested per acre Mukerji gives as 300 Ib. of grain, or 5 

 tons of jireen fodder per crop. Banerjei (Agri. Cuttack, 1893, 80-1) 

 -es its merits as a rabi, while Basu (Agri. Lohardaga, 1890, 34) 

 calls it a kharif crop. Speaking of Assam in a subsequent report (Agri. 

 Ledg., 1903, No. 5, 135), he says that kulthi-mdh is grown to a small extent 

 in Kamrup and Darrang. In the Tezpur Sub-division it is cultivated 

 by Nepalese and coolie settlers, and in Upper Assam and Nowgong is 

 unknown. Only one variety is grown. The method of cultivation and 

 time of sowing and reaping are very much as with mdti-mdh. About 

 5 seers of seed are sown per acre ; thin seeding is desirable, the object 

 being to allow the plants to creep and spread over the ground. A good Yield. 

 crop may yield up to 6 maunds of pulse per acre. 



Upper India. Duthie and Fuller (Field and Garden Crops, pt. iii., 2, 

 t. Ixxxi.) say that in the United Provinces 1>. bijloru* is grown mostly 

 as a rainy-season hill crop, ascending the hills to 7,000 feet. Atkinson 

 (Himdl. Dist., 343, 460, 696) and Stewart (Pb. Plants, 1869, 68) make 

 very similar statements. According to Sir J. B. Fuller, Dolicftos 

 bijlnnis is grown in the southern districts of the Central Provinces as a 

 cold-weather crop, but is of importance only in the Chanda, Bhandara 

 and Balaghat districts. 



Bombay. Mollison (Textbook Ind. Agri., 1901, iii., 83) observes that Bombay. 

 kulthi takes the third place among the pulses of the Presidency, and 

 according to statistical returns occupies over 500,000 acres annually. 

 The Agricultural Statistics give an average for the five years of over 

 2,700,000 acres under " other food grains including pulses." Briefly 

 stated, it may be observed that Gujarat and the Konkan are unimportant 

 sources of supply, but that the Deccan and the Karnatak are fairly 

 important (especially the districts of Ahmednagar, Satara, Poona, Dhar- 

 war, Belgaum and Bijapur). The principal cultivation is in the kharif 

 season as a row or mixed crop, subordinate to bdjri, hemp (ambadi) and 

 niger seed ; only rarely is it a pure crop. Occasionally, however, it is 

 grown in the rabi season as a second crop in rice fields. It is very sparingly 

 cultivated in Bombay as a green manure. Of the Deccan, Mollison 

 says kulthi participates in the general cultivation given for bdjri (I'enni- 

 i fi/jt/ioiili-iim). The fields in which it is grown are rarely manured 

 oftener than once in three years. The land is usually prepared by working 

 a heavy-bladed harrow (rakhar) two or three times in the hot weather, 

 and again two or three timas after rain in June. As a mixed crop it is 

 sown in July, and may occupy every fourth row. The crop is generally 

 bullock-hoed twice a year. If sown in July, the crop will be ripe at the 

 end of October or early in November. 



Madras. The crop is very important in this Presidency. Nicholson Madras. 



505 



Upper 

 India. 



seasons. 



Area. 



Seasons. 



Crop. 



