9) 
before being properly ripened. Four and a-half 
months may be considered as the average time, and 
two crops are expected annually. The rice in its 
wild state sows itself in the early winter months, 
vegetates during the season of the early rains, ripens | 
during that season, and again drops its seed at the 
approach of wintry weather. 
A level surface is essentially necessary for the 
cultivation of rice, as frequent inundations must be 
had recourse to. Where this is not the case, the 
ground is divided into terraces; and to irrigate these, 
great pains are taken to conduct the waters of the 
neighbouring springs and rivulets. When the descent 
is steep, these terraces are often not more than two 
or three feet wide. In May the preparation of the 
rice fields commences; frequent ploughing is had re- 
course to, where that is practicable ; but where it is 
terraced, only the hand-hoe can be used. Whenever 
circumstances permit, the ground is previously man- 
ured, the produce being thereby rendered not only 
greater, but of superior quality. The seed is sown 
in a corner of the field, and the plants remain there, 
till about a foot high. When the soil has been irri- 
gated sufficiently, so that it can be reduced to mud 
- by the hoe, the time of transplantation begins, and 
this is generally about the middle of June. The 
seedlings are then carefully plucked up by the roots 
and planted out, the field being subsequently laid 
under three inches of water—which after being al- 
lowed to stand for a few days is again drained off, 
and a fresh inundation resorted to. For accomplish- 
ing this transplantation only the finger is used, with 
which a hole is made, for the reception of the seed- 
ling. Vegetation then proceeds rapidly. In Behar 
such is the prodigal richness of nature, that in two 
months from planting the rice is ready for the sickle. 
In August a second crop succeeds, and is reaped in 
November. ‘‘ Planting a rice field,” says Mr. Por- 
ter, ‘‘is in India a period of jollity and bustle, and 
the usually inactive Hindoo then displays an alert- 
| ness and vivacity, which for a while overcomes the 
phlegmatic indolence of the race.”” Mr. Tennant in 
his Indian Recreations, bears also concurrent testi- 
mony to the same fact. ‘‘ This is the grand season 
of business,” he observes, ‘‘ with the Hindoo farmer, 
when his concerns absorb those of every other man 
in the community. He has then a prescriptive right, 
established by the practice and usage of some thou- 
sand years, to call out not only the artists of the 
village, but their women and children, to his assist- 
ance; though the hurry of business should continue 
a week or two.” 
To facilitate the practice of irrigation, so essen- 
tially necessary to the successful cultivation of the | 
common rice, the neighbourhood of streams and rivers 
is generally selected. The only other resourees are 
the construction of artificial tanks, or the drawing of 
water from wells, a process of great labour. In his 
Agricultural Survey of Bagulkot and Badamy, Dr. 
Marshall observes, that the culture of rice from a 
tank or reservoir is so distinct a process as to call 
for a separate description. ‘‘’There are,” he says, 
‘‘ three of these tanks in this district, the principal 
is in the vale of Kendow near Badamy, and occupies 
about 500 or 600 acres. It maintained its depth of 
from three to six feet nearly at all seasons, being 
supplied by perennial springs from the hills which 
surround it, and nothing short of an absolute failure 
of rain dries them up. It is closed at its southern 
end by a mound, but the water is perpetually flowing 
by three or four channels communicating with its 
bottom by springs, and what thus escapes is sufficient 
to inundate a tract of about two miles in length, and 
one in breadth, which is entirely devoted to the rice 
culture. ‘The fields are not terraced, but appear to 
be all on one level; there must, however, be an 
imperceptible slope, as the water does not ever seem 
to be absolutely stagnant, but there is always 2 iow 
from the tank to the river below. ‘he land 1s per- 
petually a plunge of two or three feet deep of mud; 
in this state it is worked, sown, and weeded, and in 
this state is the grain reaped. Each man’s field is 
separated from his neighbour’s, by an embankment 
of scarcely more than six inches high, and is divided 
into a number of little rectangles of four or five 
yards long, and two or three broad, the banks of 
which are three or four inches high. Two crops are 
obtained annually, one sown in August, the other in 
February; the latter is reckoned considerably the 
best, as in the other the ripening grain is exposed to 
cold weather, which is injurious to its filling. 
ground has not more than fifteen days respite between 
the reaping of one crop and the preparation for the 
next.” Where streams are net present, and where 
tanks are not used, the water fer irrigation is some- 
times laboriously drawn from wells, by the aid of 
bullocks, in a manner peculiar to India. 
acclivity from the edge of the well, a path is made 
just sufficient for twe bullocks to waik abreast, and 
this walk is proportioned in length to the depth 
of the well. A wheel or pulley is placed over the 
well, fixed to substantial beams of wood; and over 
the wheel or pulley is placed a rope attached to an 
iron or leathern bucket, ending at bottom in a conical 
flexible point. To this another rope is attached and 
conducted over another pulley, placed considerably 
below the other. The extremities of both of these 
ropes being fastened to the builocks, and the animals 
made to move in a retrograde direction towards the 
well, the bucket necessarily descends, and fills itself 
with water; when they are driven forward again, 
the bucket of course again ascends to the top. ‘The 
second rope fastened to the flexible extremity of the 
bucket, being the shorter of the two, it gradually in 
ascending becomes tightened, and on reaching the 
height of the channel, where the water is intended 
to be discharged, it is thrown over and empties it- 
self. Mr. Hamilton in his statistical survey informs 
us, that if the bullocks are well broken in, one man 
is capable of managing the whole, and that an eighth 
of a ton may be raised at once by this simple, yet 
curious plan. . 
The mountain rice is much less expensive in its 
cultivation, as it requires neither such outlay in pre- 
paration of soil nor labour in irrigation. In March 
the land is well hoed and manured, and this operation 
is for three or four times repeated weekly, and the 
clods pulverized by a mallet. After the showers of 
May, it is again hoed, and the mould still farther 
broken down and smoothed over. Drills at a span’s 
distance are then made by the finger, directed by a 
| line, four or five seeds being deposited in every span’s 
length. A small sprinkling of mould is then laid 
over them. [In four or five days the young plants 
make their appearance, and from the middle of June 
to the middle of August, the weeding of the ground 
by. means of a spade becomes frequently a very ne- 
cessary operation. In the moister grounds, especially 
those of Nepaul, when the plants are about two feet 
high, the ground comes to be infested with slugs, 
worms, and other vermin,—to destroy which, the 
farmers turn a number of ducks into the rice-grounds. 
In the earlier part of September the crop usually 
ripens, and the harvest is gathered in by the middle 
of the same month. This is done simply by cutting 
off the ears, which have the grain beat out of them 
the day after they are reaped, and thereafter it is 
dried in the sun. { 
The cultivation of rice is considered, under most 
circumstances, to be a very profitable speculation. 
The rice-crop of Bengal is considered to be generally 
better than that of any other part of India, and is 
estimated at 40 bushels per acre. Hamilton esti- 
mates the average of Nepaul at only 28 bushels. We 
s 
The 
In a steep’ 
