UPPER INDIA. 29 



Juno, besides being limited in quantity is deficient in quality ; 

 and the volatile parts of their dung being almost void of 

 ammoniacal ingredients, can be of but little value as a manure 

 except so far as they would improve the texture of the soil 

 and make it pervious to air and water. But as dung, 

 after all, is only food minus growth, if we apply the food 

 of animals to the soil as a manure, instead of using it as 

 a food, we should obtain greater results, as we should be 

 using the whole food, instead of food minus growth, that is, 

 the whole, instead of a part, as manure. This system is 

 known as green manuring. It may appear a waste of food to 

 grow a crop to bury in the soil, simply as a manure for a crop 

 which is to succeed it ; and so, no doubt, it is, in cold and tem- 

 perate climates, where only one crop can be grown in a year; but 

 the case is different in countries like Upper India, where we 

 can grow tall crops as jowar (Holcus soryhum), and other rain- 

 plants, some five or six feet high, in two or two and a half 

 months from the time of sowing, and bury them in the ground 

 before the end of the rainy season, at a time of the year when 

 there is no want of food for cattle. A good crop of jowar, of 

 two or two and a half months' growth, may weigh from 50 to 

 1 00 tons per acre, so we can in this way supply that amount 

 of manure to the land. This manure is on the spot, and 

 there is no expense of carriage. Supposing 80 per cent, of 

 the crop to be water, it leaves in the one case ten, and in the 

 other twenty, tons of vegetable matters as manure, after de- 

 ducting the water or sap of the plants, which, however, is 

 useful in promoting fermentation, as also in adding so much 

 moisture to be buried in the soil. 



It is not necessary that the crop grown to bury in the soil 

 should be one that might have been used for cattle-food. All 

 vegetable matters act as manures to the soil ; and if other 

 crops can be grown more economically or conveniently than 



