30 OPEKATIONS OF GAKDENING. PART I. 



shrubs, and fruit-trees will inevitably perish. In Bengal, it is 

 true, gardens may be, and, indeed, commonly are, kept up, as 

 far as shrubs and flowering perennials are concerned, without 

 any artificial watering at all ; but the growth of plants there, as 

 it appears to me, is not to be compared for vigour with what it 

 often is in localities where irrigation is of necessity resorted to. 

 For the cultivation of culinary vegetables with any degree of 

 success irrigation is everywhere all but absolutely indispensable. 

 In Bengal the rains generally cease about the middle of 

 October, leaving the ground sufficiently supplied with moisture 

 to render watering needless, until, perhaps, the beginning of 

 January ; after which the earth becomes dry and hard, just at 

 the period when vegetation, for the most part, is making its 

 most vigorous growth, and craves from the soil a greater 

 amount of moisture than at any other time. More particularly, 

 therefore, to plants that are either flowering or in a growing 

 condition, and whose roots lie at no great depth beneath the 

 surface of the soil, the application of water is then of the utmost 

 benefit. Several shrubs and other plants remain dormant till a 

 much later season, and do not begin to put forth till March, or 

 even April : for them, of course, irrigation is quite unnecessary 

 till their growth commences. 



Where irrigation is employed, the method of accomplishing 

 it must much depend upon the facilities which the situation 

 offers, and the nearness the water lies to the surface of the 

 ground. I shall describe the several methods I have seen 

 adopted, and state what I conceive to be the particular merits 

 of each. 



I. "Where the supply of water is from a well. 



1. In the North- Western Provinces the general mode of 

 raising water is by means of a large bag, made of the hide of a 

 bullock or buffalo. The bag, suspended from a pulley over the 

 well by a rope of buffalo hide, is drawn up by a pair of bullocks. 

 From the brink of the well to a distance as far as the rope 

 reaches, a piece of the ground is dug out wide enough for two 

 bullocks to go along abreast, deeper and deeper, so as to make 

 a declivity for the bullocks to run down as they draw up the 

 bag. One coolie is employed to drive the bullocks and another 

 has to stand at the brink of the well, and empty the bag as it 

 comes to the surface. 



