INDIA, AGRICULTURE OF. 



and the last continue to yield crops for some 

 years, but the ' trefoil' (shuftul) is an annual. 

 The Incern (rishku) is sown in spring, gene- 

 rally about the vernal equinox; for each ju- 

 reeb, or about half an English acre, 2 seers of 

 Cabool, or about 28 Ibs. English, are required 

 as seed. In 40 days it comes to perfection, and 

 is cut down, and will yield 4 full-grown crops 

 ere winter sets in, but by early cutting 6 or 8 

 crops may be drawn ; the last may sometimes 

 be inferior from premature cold. One jureeb 

 or half an English acre yields on an average 

 ten camel loads of grass at each cutting, as a 

 camel carries about 500 Ibs. ; this is a produce 

 of 5000 Ibs. the jureeb, or 10,000 Ibs. the Eng- 

 lish acre, and for four fine crops 40,000 Ibs. 

 English. The third crop is considered the 

 best, and from it the seed is preserved : of 

 this the half acre sown with the two seers of 

 Cabool will yield 40 sears, or about 560 Ibs. 

 This plant requires the best black soil, much 

 manure, and is watered 5 times each crop in 

 fact whenever it droops. It is sometimes sown 

 along with barley, but in that case the grain, 

 by exhausting the soil, injures the crop. The 

 seed is never exported, but the grass is so 

 plentiful, though all the cattle are fed on it, as 

 much to exceed the consumption; it is, there- 

 fore, dried, and that produced at any distance 

 from a market is generally stored in this man- 

 ner, and sold during winter. A camel load of 

 it, or about 500 Ibs. English, whether green or 

 dry, sells for one Cahool rupee, a coinage of 

 which 115 are equal to 100 Company's ru- 

 pees. Lucern generally lasts for 6 years, but 

 it will yield for 10 years if manure be abun- 

 dantly scattered over it. The seed is at pre- 

 sent sold for a rupee, a stone of 14 Ibs. ; but as 

 it is not cultivated for exportation, this is 

 much dearer than it might otherwise be had, 

 and its price has been almost doubled by the 

 arrival of the British troops. The trefoil or 

 'shtiftul' in cultivation, in the time of sowing, 

 reaping, and soil, resembles lucern, and the 

 calculations of produce for the one will suffice 

 for the other, only it is an annual plant. The 

 seed, too, is dearer by one half than that of lucern. 



"The clover or 'si barga' (i.e. three leaves), 

 assimilates likewise to the lucern, and it lasts 

 as long. I may, however, observe, that the 

 climate of Cabool is much later than that of 

 England, and, excepting the seed sown in au- 

 tumn, nothing is put in the ground here with 

 advantage before the 1st of April." 



Of a rotation of crops, or of fallows, the ryots 

 of Bengal have but little idea : their richest 

 low-lying grounds are devoted to the growth 

 of rice, and on the uplands they generally crop 

 the soil till it is exhausted, and then abandon 

 it to the weeds, which soon occupy it in profu- 

 sion : they have, besides, a wretched method 

 of sowing various seeds together, in a manner 

 that cannot be sufficiently reprehended. It is 

 only in some parts of India that any thing like 

 rotation of crops is observed. In the highlands 

 of Behar, the following rotation is usually 

 adopted: 1. Year-fallow and wheat; 2. Maiz 

 (muckai), followed by big or bear, a kind of 

 barley; 3. Murwa, sama, and cowaree, being 

 species of millet, followed by cotton. 



There is nothing remarkable in the domestic 

 653 



INDIAN MILLET. 



animals of Bengal : the oxen are inferior, and 

 their sheep are described as " small, lank, and 

 thin:" the colour of three-fourths of each flock 

 is black or dark-gray. The quality of the fleece 

 is worse, if possible, than its colour; it is harsh, 

 thin, and hairy, in a very remarkable degree : 

 no part of clothing or domestic furniture, so 

 far as Dr. Tennant had observed, is manufac- 

 tured of wool, except a coarse kind of blanket- 

 ing which some of the boatmen (dandies) and 

 people in the upper districts use during the 

 cold season, as a wrapper at night. 



The same system of irrigation which pre- 

 vails in Arabia, in Persia, and in Hindustan, 

 is carried on to a very considerable extent in 

 the empire of China, where the soil is culti- 

 vated perhaps more carefully, and with a 

 greater minuteness of detail, or garden system 

 of husbandry, than in any other country. I do 

 not allude in this work to their cultivation of 

 crops such as the tea plant, or those from 

 which the English cultivator is as little likely 

 to derive useful hints. They are remarkable 

 for the care with which they deepen, even by 

 the spade, their cultivated lands, and their hus- 

 banding of manures of all kinds is admirable; 

 every thing that is produced in their cities en- 

 dued with fertilizing properties, is collected 

 and preserved with the utmost care. The 

 night-soil, for instance, is made into a kind of 

 bricks with calcareous matter, and carried into 

 the most distant provinces, for the use of the 

 farmers. "There is, perhaps," says the author 

 of British Husbandry (vol. i. p. 273), " no part 

 of the world in which the preparation and the 

 practical application of vegetable and animal 

 manure is so well understood as in China ; but, 

 owing to its overflowing population, almost the 

 whole of the labour is performed by man, by 

 which the number of working animals is so 

 much reduced, that night-soil forms the princi- 

 pal dependence of the farmer. It is extensively 

 employed in a dried state, and is sold as an 

 article of commerce throughout the empire, in 

 the form of cakes, mixed up with one-third of 

 their weight of marl." To the same end the 

 poor are employed in collecting in the public 

 roads and streets all the horse and other dung, 

 which is also made into cakes with marl, and 

 these are afterwards dried in the sun. 



The system of tillage formed by the Chinese, 

 however antiquated, is not of a general descrip- 

 tion, calculated to instruct the English culti- 

 vator ; and the Chinese husbandmen are en- 

 tirely uninformed as to any scientific principles, 

 by the observance of which the cultivation of 

 the earth is improved. The same remark, in 

 fact, extends to most oriental farmers: they 

 merely follow a regular routine of operations, 

 because it is that which their forefathers adopt- 

 ed : followed without consideration, it is trans- 

 mitted unimproved. See IRRIGATION and 

 NIGHT-SOIL. (Memoir on the Agriculture of [ndia, 

 by G. W. Johnson.) 



INDIAN CORN. See MAIZE. 



INDIAN CRESS. See CRESS, IXDIAIT. 



INDIAN MILLET (Sorghum vulgare). Sor- 

 ghi is the Indian name, according to Bauhin. 

 The French call it grand millet, the Italians 

 saggena or sorgo, and the Spaniards alcandia. 

 It is much cultivated in Arabia and most 



