Chap. XVI. 
RICE-CULTIVATION. 
275 
transplanting commences about the end of May? 
and continues all June. When these cuttings are 
put into the ground, they seem to form roots and 
grow as easily as couch grass. But then this 
operation takes place during the rainy season, 
when the sky is often cloudy, and when the air is 
charged with moisture, — a circumstance which 
fully accounts for its success. 
The second class of summer crops are those 
which grow chiefly in the low valleys, and require 
irrigation during the period of their growth. 
Rice, the staple food of the people, is one of the 
principal of these, and by far the most important. 
The variety in cultivation is, I think, superior to 
the kinds met with in China and in India, and is 
probably the best in Asia. 
The rice-lands generally lie fallow all the 
winter, and consequently yield only one crop in 
the year. In the last days of April, or about the 
first of May, little patches of land are prepared in 
the comers of the fields as seed-beds for the young 
paddy. Here the seed is sown thickly, sometimes 
having been steeped in liquid manure previously 
to its being sown. It vegetates in a wonderfully 
short space of time — three or four days, if the 
weather be warm and moist, as it generally is at 
this season of the year. In the mean time, while 
this is vegetating in the seed-beds, the labourers 
are busily employed in preparing the land into 
which it is to be transplanted. 
In China the rice-land is usually prepared by the 
