2 



and favouring the growth of weeds. Thus this very long wet 

 weather made the plants moisture-sick, retarded the growth 

 hadly and turned them yellow. The total rainfall was only 

 about f ths of the average, but the number of rainy days was 

 perhaps unprecedented. The rains stopped abruptly in the middle 

 of September. Want of labour was then badly felt because all 

 agricultural operations including weeding, interculturing and 

 preparing land for winter sowing came on simultaneously. 



Owing to the absence of rain in the latter half of September 

 and early half of October both the kharif and rabi crops (espe- 

 cially cotton) suffered to a greater or less extent throughout the 

 district except in the eastern portion of the Mdndvi, Bardoli and 

 Jalalpor Tulukas. The rice crop was in most cases below 

 normal. 



Manurial Experiments. 



3. The experiments were laid out with a view to seo whether 

 costly artificial manures such as nitre, sodium nitrate, ammoniu] 

 sulphate, eta, could be profitably applied to such dry crops 

 cotton, Jowar, Tuver and Tal, &o. Owing to abnormal season; 

 of the previous years no practical conclusions had hitherto beei 

 possible. 



This year, too, on account of want of one rain towards the 

 close of the monsoon, the cotton crop suffered from want of 

 moisture and failed to give a normal yield. But the crops of 

 Jowtfr, Tal and Tuver gave a fairly normal yield. 



The results were as follows : > 



