18370 



Extra-Tropical Plants within the Tropics. 



299 



ject to our control, and at will modify according to our wants, the 

 operations of those principles of vitality, with which nature has 

 endowed plants for the perservation of the vegetable kingdom. 



Before concluding these remarks, I will briefly advert to another 

 subject of very great importance to Indian agriculture. Humboldt 

 states that the inhabitants of Xalapa cultivate wheat, not for its grain, 

 because there it does not rise into ear, but for its forage and pasture. 

 The authors of the memoir inform us, that, sown in too high a tempera- 

 ture, the Cerelioz do not produce stems, and rise to flower, but remain 

 in the form of grass (en herhe), forming a beautiful rich turf, but that 

 afterwards, on the diminution of temperature, they shoot afresh and 

 produce grain crops. They further inform us that, in some parts of 

 the south of France, especially in the delta of the Rhone, it is the 

 practice to sow early barley in autumn, for their cattle in winter, and 

 usually it gives abundance of pasture during that season, and with the 

 requisite care afterwards, a crop of grain. Hence, they add, if it is 

 judged advisable, we may take two crops from the same seeds, one of 

 forage for cattle, the other of grain for man, and both of superior quali- 

 ty. In the Carnatic the greatest difficulty the agriculturist has to 

 contend with, is the want of forage for his cattle during the hot season, 

 constraining him to use cattle of very inferior quality and unequal to 

 his work, merely because more easily fed. Might we not, by following 

 the example of the Xalapeans and Provinceans, supply ourselves as 

 they do with abundance of the finest pasture and hay ? I think we 

 might — and by a very simple process — so simple, I believe it will be 

 acknowledged by all, that it ought to be carefully tried. The subject 

 is indeed well deserving the attention of all our agricultural societies, 

 but more especially of our own, when the want of provender is annual- 

 ly so severely felt by the poorer ryots. The plan that I would propose 

 for making the trial would be to sow wheat and other grains towards 

 the end of the monsoon in December and January. If the statements and 

 deductions of Messrs. Milne-Edwards and Colin are correct, the result- 

 ing crop ought not in the first instance to rise to stem and ear, but should 

 form a rich pasture, the produce of which might be cut for hay or used 

 for grazing during the whole of the hot season, the roots all the time 

 extending and strengthening themselves for the final effort which is to 

 close their existence, that of producing a crop of grain during the en- 

 suing cool season. 



As first experiments often fail, from the intervention of unforeseen 

 circumstances difficult to prevent or even to detect in the first instance, 

 I would recommend trials to be commenced as soon as possible, and 

 repeated monthly, or at all events during the continuance of the petty 

 monsoon and towards the close of the year. I have now sown two 



