482 STANDARD PRODUCTS OF CEYLON 



draining away) is essential. Manuring is beneficial, sometimes 

 indispensable, crushed bones or bone-dust, at the rate of about 

 200 Ib. per acre, being among the most suitable forms of fertiliser. 

 In India green-manuring is much practised for improving the soil. 

 When water cannot be turned on to the land from streams or 

 rivers, it has to be raised by mechanical means (often very primitive) 

 from wells, etc., and in dry provinces, as in Egypt, India and parts 

 of Ceylon, immense tanks or artificial lakes are constructed as reser- 

 voirs, the overflow from which supplies large tracts of irrigable 

 land. In Ceylon, sloping or steep land is often rendered irrigable 



THRESHING RICE IN CEYLON. 



This is effected by buffaloes being made to walk in a circle, the rice 

 being thrown under their feet to be trampled on. The operation is usually 

 carried out in the cool of the night, and the animals are sometimes blind- 

 folded to avert giddiness. 



and suitable for rice cultivation by means of an elaborate system of 

 terracing (see under Irrigation). Here in preparing the land for 

 sowing, water is first turned on to soften the soil, which is then 

 either ploughed, roughly dug by mamoties, or merely puddled by 

 trampling teams of bulls or buffaloes. Before sowing, the seed is 

 usually soaked for 24 hours, then covered with banana leaves or sacks 

 and left for 6 days for initial germination to set in. In Ceylon, it is 

 generally sown broadcast in the field, at the rate of about 2 bushels 

 per acre. Transplanted rice, however, yields much greater returns, 

 and only about a quarter the amount of grain is required to plant an 

 acre; in this case the seedlings are transplanted to the fields when 



