754 Botanico- Agricultural account [Sept. 



long ; they are covered at the top with cowdung to prevent the moisture 

 from rotting the wood, and are planted in little banks raised along the 

 edges of the field or road, at the first commencement of the rainy sea- 

 son ; in a week or two they begin to sprout and by the following year 

 are frequently six or seven feet high, and in seven or eight years form 

 middling-sized trees. From each cutting there are usually several 

 stems, and as soon as any of these have attained a sufficient size to 

 render them available for small rafters, ploughs or other agricultural 

 implements, they are felled, the smaller ones, if any, being left, if not 

 the root soon throws out a new crop for a future supply. 



They rejoice especially in sandy and somewhat saline soil and it is 

 remarkable that in dry weather the outside of the leaves is always 

 covered with a saline efflorescence invisible to the eye but very percep- 

 tible to the taste, but this is not observable in the leaf itself, which is 

 tasteless. Probably in consequence of the quantity of salt in the wood, 

 it cannot be used as fuel in a room from the intolerable fumes it 

 gives out. 



A great portion of this tract is very low, especially that part between 

 the numerous branches of the Ghaghar, and is cultivated with rice in 

 the Tcharif and gram in the rabi. Joar is even less cultivated than in 

 the first tract, and bajra scarcely ever seen, both being sown principally 

 for the sake of the fodder. 



The rest of the Jchar if crops are the same as those in the first tract, 

 except that mandua, and til are not so much cultivated, and I have not 

 observed kodon in it at all. In the rabi, wheat and barley are the 

 principal crops, but gram and masur are abundant in the lower lands 

 of stiffer soil. Surson is very abundant either alone or mixed with 

 grain, as is flax like it cultivated for the sake of its oil. The Raphanus 

 raphanistrum, called tdrdmira, is also cultivated generally among the 

 stubble of the cotton for a coarse oil yielded by it : it is exceedingly 

 hardy and never suffers from the frost which frequently destroys the 

 surson crop. 



Mehndi (Lawsonia inermis) is cultivated in a few villages by a 

 peculiar caste called *maghs in the following manner. 



* This is the only caste who cultivate this crop, and they give the following 

 strange account of their origin : Once upon a time there was a Sarsut brahmin, 

 king of Mecca (who was maternal grand-father of Muhammad I) his name was 

 Raja Muehtasur. 



From him sprung Sahariya who with his son Sal was turned out of Arabia 

 by Hossan and Hossyn. Thence they migrated to Pundri an island, and 

 thence to Mahmudmr in the Barara mulk W. of Bhatinda, where they colonized 



