756 Botanico- Agricultural account [Sept. 



seldom fit for cutting before the end of December by which time the 

 frost sets in and materially deteriorates the quality of the juice, often 

 even entirely destroying the cane and rendering it useless for any 

 thing but indifferent fodder for the cattle and bad seed for the ensuing 

 year. The cane is even in the best years very poor, and seldom is more 

 than six or seven feet long and three fingers thick ; but as the very worst 

 is always kept for seed it is not wonderful that it should have deteri- 

 orated. The only wonder is, that it should be considered worth the 

 trouble of cultivating at all in such a way. The cane is cut from the 

 field by sickles and carried entire to the kolu or sugar- mill, which is 

 generally situated in the gohar or space surrounding the village. I 

 have here never observed it at a distance from the village (as is usual 

 in some parts of the country), except when a river intervene ; then it is 

 chopped into little bits and pressed in the kolu, the mash from which 

 the juice has been expressed, with the leaves, being used as fuel to heat the 

 sugar boilers. The village cattle are allowed however to help them- 

 selves ad libitum from the heap. The tall column of dark smoke from 

 the holds with the delicious fragrance of the boiling juice, greet one 

 from almost every village from the end of December to the middle of 

 February, by which time the work is generally quite over, though some- 

 times it is continued till late in March, when the crop is unusually 

 abundant. 



In garden fields near town, species of the cucurbitacece and arums, 

 with the sweet-potatoe and baigan, capsicum, methi {Trigonella foe- 

 num groecumj and radish (both as a vegetable made of the young pods 

 and for oil) are generally cultivated. 



The best grasses in this region are, after the dhub grass, which is 

 abundant, the dhaman (cenchri and penniseti t spp.) the palwdn 

 ( Andropogon pertusum, bladhii and scandens) from the jangals, and 

 from the fields in the rains the annual species called jangli chini and 

 sawank, Panicum colonum, brizoides, hirsutum, &c. are cut in 

 quantities for the cattle. The large birs or preserves for hay kept by 

 the Sikh chiefs consist chiefly of the spear grass (Andropogon contor- 

 tamjwith the palivan and dohamans, and the coarser kinds Poa cristata, 

 Andropogon muricaium (dhabri and senth) with the coarser sacchara, 

 cover considerable tracts in the dhak region and are useful for thatch- 

 ing. The small Perotis latifolia and Imperata cylindrica form the first 

 coating to the sandy channels of torrents deserted by the stream which 

 are not unfrequent, but they are of little value and only used when no 

 other grass is procurable. The bavu } a species of andropogon, is 

 considered poisonous. 





