470 



DYES AITD COLOEINa STUrFS. 



"who prefer sowing earlier, and yet are aware of the importance of saving the 

 young plants as much as possible from the comparative low temperature of the 

 season, sow some other crop with their indigo. Til, the country linseed, is 

 good for this purpose in high lying soils. But I never knew an intermixture 

 of crops that was not attended by inconveniences and injuries more than was 

 compensated by the advantages gained. 



The success of sowings during March and April is very doubtful. It depends 

 entirely upon the occurrence of rain, which in those months is proverbially 

 uncertain. If the season should be sufiiciently wet, the sowing may be per- 

 formed in May,' but a June sowing is very rarely remunerating. The rains- 

 setting in during the latter part of this month so promote the growth of weeds, 

 that the young plants are choked and generally destroyed. The exceptions- 

 only occur in high lands, in unusually propitioiES seasons, and ought never to 

 be relied upon except when the earlier sowings have failed. To protract the 

 manufacturing season, some planters begin sowing upon low lying lands in the 

 hot season, for the chance of a crop at the commencement of the rains ; and 

 they sow at the close of the rains with the hope of, as it were, stealing another 

 in the next year. In the western provinces sowing necessarily occurs in the 

 dry weatht-.^r, usually in March and April, though occasionally either a little 

 earlier or later. 



In Tirhoot the sowings commence about the latter end of February or the 

 beginning of March, if by that time there is sufficient warmth in the atmo- 

 sphere to ensure a healthy vegetation. Light soils are sown on one close plough- 

 ing ; heavy soils on two, Avith from four to eight seers of seed, in proportion 

 to the size of the biggah. After strewing the seed, the iield should be harrowed 

 down by two turns of the harrow, and then again by two turns more after the 

 third day. In case of rain before the plant appears (which it ought to do on 

 the sixth or seventh day), if a slight shower, the harrow should be used again; 

 if very heavy, it were best to turn up the ground and re-sow. If rain fall 

 after the appearance of the plant, and before it has got past four leaves, 

 and attained sufficient strength to resist the hard crust before alluded to, im- 

 mediate recourse must be had to drilling. In fact, the closest attention is 

 required to watch the state of the young crop for a month at least after the 

 sowings ; if it yield the least, or assume a sickly appearance, drills are the only 

 resource. These, if applied in time, in all March, for instance, or before the 

 middle of April at latest, are generally successful, not only in restoring plants, 

 but recovering such as may have become sickly from want or excess of moisture,, 

 or any other cause. In dry seasons they have been knoAvn to give a crop when 

 broadcast sowings have failed. Each drill, with a good pair of bullocks, should 

 do five biggahs a day. They are regulated to throw from three to four seers 

 per biggah, but the cj_uantity can be increased or diminished at pleasure. The 

 natives do not employ them in their grain sowings, but commonly adopt a con- 

 trivance with their ovm plough for sowing in furrows, whenever their fields 

 are deficient in moisture. The drill employed in Tirhoot resembles con- 

 siderably the implement known by that name in England. It is found not 

 only to effect a great saving of seed, ten seers being there sown broad- 

 cost on a biggah of 57,600 feet square, and only seven seers by this drill ; but 

 also materially to improve the quality and regularity of the growth of the 

 plant. Experience has demonstrated, that the more lateral room the plants 

 have, the more abundant is their produce of leaves, in which the coloring 

 matter chiefly resides. The seed employed should always be as new as possible, 

 for though, if carefully preserved, it vegetates when one year old, and even when 

 nearly two years old has produced a moderate crop, yet this has been under 

 circumstances of an unusually favorable season and soil. The plants from old 

 seed rarely attain a height of more than a foot before they wither and die. As 

 frauds are very likely to be practised by giving old seed the glossiness and 

 general appearance of new, great circumspection should be shown by the 

 planter, who does not grow his own, in obtaining seed from known parties. 



Planters in the lower provinces are induced to use up-country seed, because, 

 coming fi-om a colder climate, it vegetates, and the plants ripen rapidly, so as to 

 "be harvested more certainly before the annual inundation, but they employ 

 one-fourth more. Three seers per Bengal biggak are sufficient, if it is 



