1840.] A cursory Notice of Nay akote. 1119 



apricot (native), and plums of many kinds. All but the two first 



of these, however, flourish as well, or better, in the greater valley, 



being European products. 



The smaller horticultural products of Nayakote are pine- apples, 



(excellent,) plantains of many kinds and good, Jamans four sorts, 



melons, but no grapes nor peaches ; pines, plantains, and jamans are 



denied to the greater valley, where however the orange — that boast of 



Nayakote, flourishes. The better kinds of the Nayakote oranges are 



equal to any in the world, so that our horticulturists in India should 



endeavour to procure and propagate them. The agricultural products 



of Nayakote resemble in general those of the greater valley of Nepal 



Proper ; and as the latter have been fully described in print, I shall on 



the present occasion specify only the peculiarities of Nayakote produce, 



resulting from its more tropical climate. It has already been observed 



that w^hereas there are two crops per annum in the greater valley, 



there is only one in the lesser, because of the excess of moisture in the 



Byasis, and of the total want of means of artificial irrigation in the 



Tars. The Byasis yield only rice, which is not planted nor reaped at 



the early periods prevalent in the greater valley, but at the later ones 



usual in the plains of Behar ; and the like is true of the sugar-cane, 



which is grown on the skirts of the Byasis. In the great valley every 



blade of rice has disappeared by the beginning of November, and half 



the crop by the middle of October ; the untransplanted sorts of Ghya 



even sooner. In Nayakote the rice-harvest lasts till the beginning of 



December, nay to the middle of that month, and there are then no 



means of desiccating the fields rapidly enough for a spring crop. 



The rice grown in the Byasis are diflferent from those grown in the 



greater valley, with the exception of Malsi and Touli, and even of these 



two sorts there is but little. Munsera is the staple crop of Nayakote, and 



of its several kinds, as Doodia, Gouria, &c. It is of a bright golden 



hue, straw and grain, and longer in the stalk than our rices, to the best 



of which it is equal in quality. Among the seventeen to twenty sorts 



of rice grown at Nayakote, are the Mal-bhog, Krishen-bhog, and other 



fine descriptions for which Phillibheet is so famous. None of these last 



can be raised in the greater valley. The following are the names of 



the Nayakote rices — 



7 D 



