A JOURNEY FROM MADRAS THROUGH 
Soil fit for 
sugar-cane. 
98 
CHAPTER If it be intended to keep the field of Puttaputti for a second 
II. year’s crop, the dry leaves which are cut off at crop season must be 
May 20, &c. burned on the spot, and the whole field must be dug with the Fella 
Ratoon crop. Kudali. The trenches must then be filled with water, and for six 
months the watering must be continued once in eight or ten days, 
unless there be rain. The weedings, during this time, ought to be 
three ; at each of which dung ought to be given. At the end of 
six months, the canes having grown one cubit high, the weakly 
plants must be removed, and the strongest tied up, as in the first 
crop. The manner of conducting the two crops after this is quite 
similar. The canes of the second crop must be all cut within the 
year. 
Mucutu , or black clay, is the best soil for both kinds of sugar- 
cane ; but it is reserved for the Puttaputti. The Cabbay , or red earth, 
answers for the Restali, which does not require such a strong soil. 
The two inferior soils do not by any means answer for this produc- 
tion. The crop of rice immediately succeeding sugar-cane is very 
bad ; the second returns to its usual quantity ; but the sugar-cane 
is never again repeated on the same ground, till three crops of rice 
have intervened. The roots and tops of the cane are burned for 
boiling the Jagory . The ashes are reckoned injurious to any soil 
on which they may be laid; but this is certainly a prejudice. 
Sugar-cane is never cultivated without manuring. 
Having neglected, at my first visit to Seringapafam } to obtain an 
watered land, account of the produce of the various crops of watered land, on 
my second visit I called together some respectable Gaudas, in pre- 
sence of the Amildar , and of a well informed Sheristadar . I then 
measured a field, said by them to contain a Candaca of land, or as 
much as ought to sow 280 Seers of rice, and found it to be 6y acres, 
on which, joined to their report concerning the quantity of seed 
required, and the return produced by a Catidctea ot land, I found 
the following calculations : 
Produce of 
