94 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



the Chinese are careful not to place the plants at all 

 close together lest they should rob one another of 

 their needful portion of nourishment. This and the 

 farther practice of frequent weeding, which from 

 their manner of performing the operation is equiva- 

 lent to hoeing among us, brings their method com- 

 pletely into agreement with Tull's system of horse- 

 hoeing husbandry, which was not proposed for adop- 

 tion in Europe until its prosecution had been thus 

 practised commonly, and for ages, in the Chinese 

 empire. 



In all its principal features the method of culture 

 is the same in Hindostan as it is in China. In some 

 parts of Bengal the farmer suffers much from the 

 depredations committed by wild hogs during the night. 

 In order to guard as much as possible against this 

 evil, a sort of shed is erected upon bamboos in the 

 field, wherein a servant is stationed to scare away 

 these intruders, a precaution that is accompanied by 

 much trouble and expense, and which yet is not 

 always completely efficacious in preserving their pro- 

 perty. These erections, which are very numerous in 

 some districts towards the period of harvest, present 

 a very curious appearance to the traveller. 



The cultivators of rice in America sometimes suffer 

 severely from the depredations of the rice-bird of 

 Catesby (Emberiza oryzivora), known familiarly in 

 the country by the name of Bob Lincoln. This bird 

 is about six or seven inches long ; its head and the 

 under part of its body are black, the upper part 

 is a mixture of black, white, and yellow, and the 

 legs are red. Immense flocks of these birds are 

 seen in the island of Cuba, where the rice crop pre- 

 cedes that of Carolina ; but when from the hardening 

 of the grain the rice in that quarter is no longer 

 agreeable to them, they migrate towards the north, 

 and pass over the sea in such numerous parties, as 



