472 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [January i, 1892. 
and S76. No. 379 is tantomount to saying " early 
planting sbould be thio, late planting thick." In Nos. 
380 and 381, early sowing is shown to be valuable, 
and in Nob, 382 to 385 the results of late sowing 
to be disastrous. No. 385, alludes to the fact that 
8uoh late sowings rarely oome to anything. No. 362 
the chitta (an insect), which attacks the leaves and 
stalks of the paddy, is believed to do the crop good, 
if the attack be timely, as it leads to greater vigor. 
In No. 387, the paddy crop is understood to be 
speaking: the meaning being that it becomes ripe at 
thai time. 
We quote the following : — 
Will sugarcane and paddy grow on poor eoil ? 
Watch and yon have a paddy field ; neglect and 
yon have only a waste. 
A paddy field without weeding is like a temple 
without a god. 
Growing tailed paddy is like befriending a blood- 
Buclcer. 
A stream for a rice field, a troop for a chief. 
Other Crops form the Bubjects of the next batch 
of j*roverbs. The following are Bome of them — 
Gholum succeeding cholum will not grow well. 
The first part of a maize cob and the last part of 
ft tobacco leaf are the best parts. 
In a bad eeason, even red gram does not grow. 
When you take up land, sow horse gram : before 
you relinqniBh it, crop it with gingelly. 
An easterly wind to green-gram, and month disease 
to cattle (are injurious). 
An impoverished man should sow gingelly. 
Did castor cultivation ever pay well ? 
Ten ploughings for cotton. 
If sugarcane runs crooked, it does not get bitter. 
The more you press sugarcane, gingelly seed, or a 
Sudra, the better will the result be. 
(Transplant) brinjals old end paddy tender. 
If we touch a pumpkin it decays, and if we walk 
over a water-melon plant, it grows well. 
Garlic is as goad aa ten mothers' care. 
Water obtained after cleaning rice is injarioas to 
coconut plants. 
The last batch of proverbs relates to live Bi;ook. 
From Mr. Benson's remarks we quote as follows : — 
The number of sayings on this subject is com- 
paratively limited and thoy are not very comprehensive. 
No. 464 alludes to the real extravagance of purchas- 
ing poor cattle. Nos. 466 to 472 give varied advice 
as to purchasing stock — color, horns, legs and tail, 
are all to be taken into account. In No. 469 the 
seven members are the legs, horns and neck. In No. 
471, the bullock referred to is one that has been 
troublesome to break in. The birth of a short- tailed, 
or of a blind animal in a man's herd are believed to 
be followed by the results noticed in No. 472 agjiinst 
eaob. No. 473 indicates much carelessness in breeding. 
Nob, 478 — 481 allude speoially to the necessity for 
feeding cattle well; tl'e last mentioned alluding 
specially to the value of fodder given to cattle in 
the early morning before they go to work. The 
Buttukadimi is the hinaudea parvi/oUa. No. 482 alludes 
to what is seldom practised, i.e., littering cattle well 
in their stalls. The high value set on dairy cattle is 
referred to in several sayings, many of which convey 
practical hints : — Thus No. 487 refers to the great care 
required by milch cattle ; Nos. 488 and 489, to the 
necessity for feeding them well ; No. 490, to the value 
of breeding ; No. 492, to the prevailing idea that a 
she-bufi'alo will yield as much whether milked once 
or twice a day ; Nos. 495 — 498, to the difficulties ex- 
perienced in milking cows which have lost their calves; 
No. 500, to the habit of concealing the value of a 
milker as long as she lives; No. 502, to the practice 
which prevails in places of turning out the buffalo 
to act as the village scavenger ; and No. 503, to the 
way in which the calf is usually half- starved. No. 
504 alludes to the fact that the care of tlie she- 
bull'aloes is especially the women's work. Pew of the 
ryota' cows oalvo annually (No. 505), and the calves 
of those that do uro usually puny. The belief that 
a cow will invariably kick (No. 50G) when tbcy are 
being milked leada to their lega alwaja being tiecl« 
Nos. 509 and 510 allude to the diSeraaces in the 
qualities of bullocks and he-buffaloes for draught pur- 
poses. In No. 513, the necessity for branding in 
exactly the right spot, being as great as that of speak- 
ing to the point, is alluded to. 
The following are specimens of the proverbs : — 
High-priced cloths and low-priced cattle should not 
be bought. 
Purchase without farther inquiry a bull with thia 
horns. 
One word is enough for a good man, and cn9 
stroke for a good bullock. 
A bullock without a nose-string and a child brought 
np by a widow are uncontrollable. 
The ploughman who works a bullock for more than 
ten years is sinful. 
Property is the strength of man, food that ot a beast. 
There will be no want in a house where the 
churn and the spinning wheel are at work. 
There are sixty-six varieties of sweetmeats in the 
udder of the cow. 
Look to the mother before you marry the daughter, 
milk a buffalo before you buy it. 
Though a she-buffalo eat filth, will the milk be 
spoilt ? 
To keep an elephant a man requires a district ; 
to keep a horse a village ; to keep a she-buffalo a 
maid. 
Cultivation with buffaloes is useless. 
We have thus given specimens of this interesting 
collection ; and we hope that we shall Foon see 
in print a similar collection of the wise saws of 
onr Ceylon agriculturists. 
Brick Tea as Ctjebency. — Mr. Julius M. 
Price, the special artist of the Illustrated Londori 
Neivs, in his description of his journey across 
Mongolia writes : — 
The currency of Mongolia is peculiar, and re- 
quires much experience to understand it. On one 
occasion I bought some trifling article and paid for 
in it B;ussian money, which the Mongols are, at any 
rate, shrewd enough never to refuse. But imagine 
my surprise when, for the change, I was handed a 
small slab of brick-tea and two dirty little bits of 
floss silk, which I should have passed unnoticed in 
the gutter. These rags, which intrinsically were 
probably worth less than a farthing, represented 
twenty kopeks (sixpence), as I was informed, while the 
tea was equivalent to thirty kopeks. This tea, by 
the way, is the only real currency throughout Mon- 
golia : the silk is becoming gradually obsolete probably 
because it wears out too soon, whereas the tea will 
stand almost any amount of hard wear. A " brick 
of tea, sixteen inches long by eight wide and about 
one-and-a-half thick, represents sixty kopeks, equal 
to one shilling and sixpence. If a smaller sum is 
necessary, the brick is cut up into sections worth six 
or ten kopeks each, and even these are again sub- 
divided by the poorer Mongols. It is curious to 
note that, althout,h Mongolia is really Chinese ter- 
ritory, eveything is Russian, so to speak ; and even the 
tea and silk represent an equivalent in Russian and 
not Chinese money. Some of the Russian merchants 
in Ourga have even adopted a sort of private bank- 
note system, so as to do away with the bother of 
having to keep a large stock of loose cash — that is, of 
"brick" — always handy. These notes represent so 
many bricks each, and are redeemable on demand; 
but I hear that the Mongols prefer the bulky article 
to the flimsy paper substitute. When, after a time, 
this currency becomes injured by hard usage, and 
chipped round the edges, it is used for the usual pur- 
poses of tea, and it may be imagined what a delight- 
ful beverage it makes after it has been passing from 
hand to hand for some months among the dirty Mon- 
gols. However, these ohildern of the desert are 
not fastidious, and the greasy-looking stuff is broken 
up and literally put to stew in the common caldron 
of the " yourt," where, eaten with millet seed, it 
moikos 9i dish much appreciaited toi some days. 
