120 



Some Account, Historical, Geographical 



[July 



the great plough that requires from eight to sixteen. The latter is used 

 to break up.the roots of the nuth grass, in preparing waste or choked up 

 regur lands for the smaller plough. Drill ploughs with three or four 

 shares, are employed for sowing ; and for weeding, large and small har- 

 rows, furnished with small hoes, cutting almost horizontally. They are 

 drawn commonly by two bullocks. The bill-hook and pickaxe are some- 

 times employed in clearing the land. The mamotie, or Indian hand 

 spade, is in universal use. The total number of ploughs in the Ceded 

 Districts amounts to about 155,522. 



Manure. — It is a remarkable quality of the best sort of regur or black 

 soil, that, provided proper attention be paid to the due rotation of crops, 

 it does not require manure nor irrigation, beyond the usual periodical 

 supply afforded by the rains and dews. In the immediate vicinity of 

 villages we sometimes s^e its refuse thrown on the mixed black soil, but 

 lam assured by many intelligent rayets that the first sort of regur would 

 be deteriorated by manure. "We must therefore consider its component 

 parts blended together in proportions too accurately balanced to need 

 addition. The most common manures for the inferior sort of regur and 

 mussub lands, are sheep dung, mixed with village ashes, rubbish, &c. 

 ploughed in for dry grain lands, once every three or four years. Red 

 soils are also manured annually by folding large flocks of sheep 

 upon them; 1,000 sheep being calculated to be 'sufficient for six acres 

 in ten nights. Cow-dung for sugar-canes is considered inferior to sheep 

 dung, which is used annually, and, when the soil requires loosening, mix- 

 ed with a little red earth. Cow dung is also in great request in the 

 Ceded Districts, where fire-wood is scarce as a fuel ; for which purpose 

 it is made up into thin cakes, termed bratties, dried in the sun, and piled 

 into stacks : the ashes form a good manure. In the indigo districts I 

 have seen the stalks and leaves of the plant, after the extraction of the 

 dye, used as a manure, sometimes twice a year, particularly to wet rice 

 grounds. In other districts the leaves of wild plants, such as the Cassia 

 auriculata, mixed with sheep dung, are employed. In gardens, sheep's 

 blood, garbage, stale fish and other stimulating matter, are applied annu- 

 ally to the roots of the grape vines, which are bared for the purpose. To 

 betel plantations, sheep's dung, wood ashes and red earth mixed,are ap- 

 plied once in from three to seven years. To the roots of the cocoa and 

 areca palms, cow and sheep dung, mixed w T ith the sedimentary deposit 

 from the beds of tanks and pools, should be applied once a year. Some 

 natives apply a quantity of common salt to the very top of, the cocoa- 

 auttree, which dissolving is supposed to penetrate downwards to the root 



