13 8 
A JOURNEY FROM MADRAS THROUGH 
CHAPTER 
III. 
June 7. 
Rice. 
The kinds of rice cultivated here are as follow : 
Names. Ripening. Names. Ripening. 
Doda Butta 5 months. Conawaly 5 months. 
Put u Butt a 5 months. Mulu Butta 3 months. 
Hotay Caimbuti 5 months. 
Every kind may be cultivated, either as Hainu or Cam. The 
Mulu Butta is never sown, except when there is a deficiency of 
water. The only cultivation here is the Mola Butta , or sprouted- 
seed ; the manner of preparing which is as follows : Steep the seed 
in water all night ; next morning mix it with cow-dung, and fresh 
plants of the Tumbay Sopu, or Phlomis esculent a, Roxb. MSS., and 
put it in a Mudy. On the Mudy place a heavy stone, and on the 
two following days sprinkle it with water. O 11 the third day it is 
fit for sowing. 
For the Hainu crop, the ploughings, from about the 1st of June 
till the 11th of July, are nine in number. Dung and leaves are 
then put on the field, and trampled into the mud. The water is now 
let off, until no more than a depth of one inch remains; afterwards, 
the seed is sown, and a slight sprinkling of dung is laid over it. 
A watering once in three days is then given ; and after the third 
time, the field is inundated till the grain ripens. The weeds are 
removed on the 20th, 40th, and doth days. The Caru cultivation 
is exactly the same, only the ploughings are between the 21st of 
November, and the 20th of December. 
In both kinds of cultivation, and in every species of rice, an 
equal quantity of seed is sown on the same extent of ground, and 
the produce is nearly equal. By measuring a plot of ground, and 
reducing to the English standards the farmer’s estimate of its seed 
and produce in a middling good crop, I find the seed to be for an 
acre, 1 bushel 1,624 gallon, and the produce to be 36 bushels 
0,720 gallon, or thirty fold. The quantity of seed here is smaller, 
and the produce greater, than in the land watered by the river 
Cdvery . 
