1859.] Account of Pergminah Malwla, Zillali Ilumeerpore. 377 



The plant is a creeper, resembling the convolvolus, but, they 

 say produces no visible flowers or seed, (this may be because it is a 

 perennial, rooted up after the first year) it is propagated by cutting 

 off the upper part, where the leaves are too tender for sale, and every 

 slip from joint to joint takes. The land is carefully prepared, and 

 oil cakes, of the husks and stalks of the tiliee, used as manure. 



Iu"Phagoon" and " Bysagh," the cuttings are planted at a 

 distance of three or four inches apart, in straight lines termed 

 "cor," along light bamboo frames six feet high, allowiug a passage 

 between them of about two feet broad. The top and sides of the 

 gardens are protected from the sun by screens of grass interwoven 

 with bamboos, and give the whole a most curious appearance from 

 without, especially as the doors are of the same material, and very 

 small, so as to be scarcely discernible. 



In the height of the hot winds every line requires careful wa- 

 tering, from earthen pots, four to eight times a day according to 

 the heat ; but after the rains once every three or four days is suffi- 

 cient and the leaves are then plucked throughout the cold weather 

 beginning at the bottom and largest ones. Each plant, on an 

 average furnishes twenty leaves; or one "dolly" of two hundred 

 leaves (the measure they are sold by) is ordinarily produced from 

 ten plants. The price of these dollies varies by quality ; those of 

 mixed large and small leaves, fetch from one to three annas in 

 ordinary seasons, while the superior ones, all of first quality, rise to 

 six and seven annas at the gardens. 



The land is generally given on " thausa" leases, at from ten to 

 twenty rupees a beegah, but occasionally, as tins year in Didwara, 

 the cultivators refuse, and prefer paying per line of one hundred 

 feet. 



Singliara. 



The tanks throughout the Pergunnah, are naturally, most fa- 

 vourable to this crop, which is exclusively cultivated by men of 

 the Dheemur caste, and is to be found in most villages. In the 

 end of January, the seed or fruit is scattered, at the rate of a 

 maund to a local beegah, over the water where it is sufficiently deep 

 to preclude any idea of its drying up before the rains. It is then 

 pressed into the mud by sticks, or the feet (very deep water being 



