November, 1908.] 



461 



Scientific A griculture' 



LEAF MANURING IN SOUTH 

 OANARA. 



By M E. Couchman, i.c.s., 

 Director of Agriculture, Madras. 



Oue of the most interesting and 

 important duties of the Agricultural 

 Department will be to ascertain, by 

 detailed local enquiries, what use is 

 made by the cultivators of each tract 

 of the sources of manure available to 

 them. A few notes regarding the agri- 

 cultural practices of the district of 

 South Canara, in the Madras Presidency, 

 may therefore interest some readers of 

 the journal. 



The district is a narrow strip of land 

 lying between the western ghauts and 

 the sea. Originally a laterite plateau, 

 this has been cut up into deep valleys 

 by numerous rivers rising in the hills, 

 fed by a rainfall of from 120 to 200 

 inches. The valley bottoms have been 

 converted into rice-lands, which extend 

 to varying distances up the sides of the 

 hills, according to the steepness of the 

 gradient, and the pressure of population. 

 In the adjoining district of Malabar, 

 where there is a larger population, 

 many of the hills have been carved into 

 terraced fields to the very summit. In 

 South Canara the slope of the hill is 

 covered with scrub jungle, but when 

 the top of the hill itself is reached, it is 

 usually seen to be a bare plateau, 

 covered with short grass during the 

 rainy month, and almost bare in the 

 hot weather. In many parts the surface 

 is mere laterite rock on which nothing 

 will grow. Rice is practically the only 

 crop grown. The almost continuous 

 rain which falls in June, July, August 

 and part of September suffices to grow 

 the first crop of rice. For the second 

 crop, dams of brushwood and earth are 

 thrown across most of the larger 

 streams, and the numerous springs 

 which flow from the steep laterite hills 

 are carefully trained along the sides 

 of the valleys. Where these are insuffi- 

 cient, shallow pits are sunk in the cor- 

 ners of the fields and the water is baled 

 from them by a picotah of peculiar con- 

 struction. Instead of two men walking 

 to and fro on the top of the lever, a num- 

 ber of ropes are attached to the end 

 remote from the bucket. A hole about 

 6 feet deep is dug beneath this end of the 

 picotah, with steps cut in one side. 

 Four or five women and children hold 

 the ends of the ropes, and when the 

 bucket is full, they throw themselves 

 backwards into the hole, thus pulling 

 up the bucket. They then walk up the 

 steps cut in the side of the pit, and so 

 the work goes on. It has this advantage 



over the picotah of the I East Coast, that 

 whereas the latter requires strong and 

 well-trained men, and there is always 

 some danger of the men falling from 

 the lever, the South Canara picotah 

 renders the cheap labour of women and 

 children available, and is perfectly safe. 

 In c ome parts a third rice crop is grown, 

 but this is always invariably by lift irri- 

 gation throughout. The usual practice 

 is as follows : — 



In April and May parts of the low- 

 lying lands are well ploughed in the 

 dry, and dry seed-beds prepared, the 

 seed broad-casted and ploughed in. In 

 many cases the " mango showers" suffice 

 to germinate the seed. These seed-beds 

 are called "dust seed-beds," and the 

 seedlings raised from them are con- 

 sidered more robust than those raised 

 in wet seed-beds. Where there is not 

 sufficient moisture in the soil, the seed- 

 beds are irrigated from a shallow tank 

 or well with the picotah described above. 

 Seedlings raised this way, with what is 

 called " old water," i.e., before the south- 

 west monsoon rains commence, though 

 not so good as those grown in the dry 

 beds, are preferred to those sown after 

 the burst of the monsoon. The monsoon 

 usually bursts about the end of the 

 first week of June. By this time the 

 seedlings are almost ready for trans- 

 plantation. The lower-lying lands are 

 hastily prepared and transplanted soon 

 after the middle of June, the higher- 

 lying lands being planted as soon as 

 cattle and labour can be spared from 

 the work on the more valuable low- 

 lying fields. 



Harvest of the first crop on double 

 crop lands begins soon after 15th Sep- 

 tember. Seedlings for the second crop 

 have in the meantime been prepared in 

 a field left vacant for the purpose. The 

 stubble is hastily ploughed in, manure 

 applied, and the second crop planted in 

 October. This is harvested about the 

 end of January. Where a third crop is 

 raised, this is put in soon after the 

 harvest of the second, and harvested 

 about the middle of May. 



From this short account of the ordinary 

 methods of cultivation, it will be clear 

 that a severe strain is put on the fertility 

 of the soil. The same cereal crop is 

 raised year after year, and in some 

 cases rice is on the ground for eleven 

 months out of the twelve. The torren- 

 tial rainfall washes most of the 

 soluble plant foods from the soil, and 

 land left uncultivated soon becomes 

 incapable of growing anything but a 

 little coarse thatching grass. The object 

 of this paper is to describe some of 

 the methods by which the cultivators 



