18 



ORYZA SATIVA. 



Sowing. 



Irrigation. 



Weeding. 



Harvesting. 



earth more compact it is said to facilitate evaporation, whicli brings of course the salt 

 to the surface. 



For sowing, the soil must be thoroughly moist, but may be a miry slush, on the 

 surface of which the seed is scattered and harrowed in. If the rice is sown broad-cast 

 40 seers to the acre are held sufficient. If seedlings are to be raised in a nursery much 

 thicker sowing is followed. It is a common practice, especially when the weather 

 at sowing time is very wet, to give an artificial stimulus to germination by soaking 

 the seed in water for a night, and then leaving it for a couple of days covered with 

 damp grass. If the crop is to be transplanted, the nursery should be about i\th the 

 size of the field. The seedlings are taken up when about a foot high, and planted out 

 in regular lines at distances of six inches, from two to six seedlings being planted 

 together. 



For rice which is grown in the hot weather months, frequent and copious irrigation 

 is absolutely necessary, whether the District be moist or dry. Eice sown at the com- 

 mencement of the rains and cut in August or September under ordinary circumstances 

 needs no watering, but the transplanted varieties, which are not ready for harvesting till 

 November, need two or three waterings after the rains have ceased. Of the total area 

 under rice in the 30 temporarily settled N.-W. Provinces Districts, only 15 per cent, is 

 returned as irrigated, and this may be presumed as the proportion which transplanted 

 bears to broad-casted rice. 



The rain water is carefully economized by surrounding the field with a bank which 

 prevents any great loss of water by surface drainage. Irrigation, if required at all, is 

 required in such quantity that wells are almost, if not quite, useless for the purpose, and 

 the crop can only afford the less costly water which can be derived from tanks, rivers, 

 or canals. The efiect of the Ganges Canal on rice cultivation is seen very clearly in the 

 Muzaff'arnagar District, where transplanted and irrigated rice, which was formerly almost 

 unknown, now occupies 50 per cent, of the total rice area. 



At least one weeding is, as a rule, given to broad-casted rice. Planted rice is re- 

 ported in Cawnpore to be more frequently weeded than broad-casted, but in Allahabad 

 it requires no weeding at all. The explanation of the discrepancy is to be looked for in 

 the previous preparation of the field; if the weeds were thoroughly eradicated then, 

 subsequent weedings might be rendered unnecessary. 



The crop is cut with sickles in exactly the same manner as wheat or barley. The 

 most common method of threshing is by beating out the grain with sticks, but it ap- 

 pears that in some localities the grain is trodden out by cattle, the ears having been 

 previously separated from the straw, which is too succulent to break up into chaS" as is 

 the case with wheat or barley. The straw called {pial) is used for cattle fodder when 

 all else fails, but is very innutritions, and possibly this may be the reason why the agri- 

 cultural cattle of rice Districts are the worst in the Provinces. The grain after being 

 threshed out does not lose its husk, and in this condition is known as dhdn. The 

 husk is separated by pounding the grain either with a wooden pestle (mansari) in a mortar 

 {ohliaVi), or in the lever mill known as the dliehoU. The husking is sometimes facilitated 

 by soaking the grain in warm water and allowing it to dry. Of course so rude a process 

 destroys some portion of the produce, and of the 60 to 70 lbs. of cleaned rice which can 



