1848.] 



The Neilgherrij Mountains. 



33 



depth of 6 inches, and consequently fresh and unworked soil is never 

 worked up to the surface, but the top soil is alone made use of. The 

 consequence of this, and other causes, is that they can take but one 

 crop off their lands, of wheat and barley, and are then compelled to 

 let them lie fallow always for two, and generally for three years before 

 they are again brought under the plough. Attempts were, I be- 

 lieve, made some time back to introduce cast iron ploughs amongst 

 the Burghers, but, of course, without success; first, because of the 

 obstruction which their prejudices opposed to the introduction of 

 the novelty; and secondly, because there were no Europeans to 

 show them how to use them, or how to team their little diminutive 

 cattle so as to enable them to drag them. It would be useless there- 

 fore to attempt to make them use a better description of plough, until 

 the means for instructing them in its use could be commanded ; and 

 here again we see the advantages which a model government farm 

 would present, in the facility with which all such innovations upon their 

 old vicious system could be practically illustrated, and made available 

 for those, for whose improvement it was introduced. At present, in- 

 stead of making one plough perform the work of furrowing the ground 

 to the required depth, six or seven ploughs are employed, each follow- 

 ing precisely in the track of its predecessor, the spike of the one deepen- 

 ing the small trenches scraped by the other ; until, when the last has 

 passed, it has been made what they consider deep enough, when they 

 turn and form a new one. The ground is then worked, chiefly by 

 boys and women, with a small hand hoe (for they have no harrows 

 or any other farming implement besides the plough), and the 

 grass and weeds collected with the hand into small heaps, and 

 afterwards burned. Manure is then thrown over the fields and 

 slightly worked in, and it is then considered fit for the seed. The 

 wretched quality of the manure which they use, next requires 

 notice. 



Neglect of ma- They have no knowledge whatever of the 



way to produce or manufacture, if the term 

 may be used, manure, by heaping the dung of their cattle, and 

 covering it in with alternate layers of soil, and vegetable sub- 

 stances ; but merely take the dung, which has been lying exposed 

 to the sun and weather for months, the whole of the nutritious 

 gases having escaped and its fermentation being long since over, 

 and apply it in its dry and hard, and all but useless state, to the land. 



VOL. XV, NO. XXXIY. ^ 



