III Ceylon, a variety of coastpaddy, called Mottoo mambo*, was introduced into the Kandyan Pro vince in 1832, which WM found to produce a more abundant crop, by one - third, than the native. It is of six months' giowth.
Dr. Marshall, Statistical Reporter in the Dekhan, fousel five modes of planting rice common in Kakstroddi. The most productive was by trans planting (Rop) from a nursery. A. second mode was to sow it by the drill called Kooree or Koorgee, from the Mahratta name of the drill, and this mode can be adopted only when very little rain has fallen ; the outturn is small. The third process was to sow the grain in the furrow made by the common plough. The fourth, termed .Mullik, is resorted to when any of the former has failed ; in it the grain is wetted, put in a sack, and kept warm, and made to germinate, and then thrown broadcast on the place where there IIE1S been failure. The fifth process, Sardi, is to transplant any of the superfluous mullik plant.
In South India generally, there are two great crops, the Kaar and the Sumbah or Peshanum. The latter is reaped in February and March, and its produce is preferred to that of the Kaar crop, which is reaped in October.
In Travancore and Tinnevelly, the rice fields are manured with cow-flung, ashes, and tree leaves. Rice seed is usually sown broadcast, thickly, and about 40 days or upwards trans planted, and the usual time from the planting out to the reaping season is about 60 days. When sown broadcast, thinly, to remain in the same field, that is generally done about 15 days before the rains set in. It is generally supposed that while growing the plants cannot have too much water, but as the ears come to maturity, the water is drawn off and the crop lies down under the weight of the ears.
Further India.—In the Assam valley, in the seaboard of Chittagong, Arakan, Pegu, the valleys of the Burma and Pegu rivers, in Amherst, the Tenasserim Provinces, Province Wellesley, Siam, Cochin-China, Catnbodia, China, and the great islands of the Archipelago, rice is the chief grain food.
itrakan soil is fit for the culture of nearly all tropical productions ; rice, however, is alone cultivated to any great extent, tho low alluvial soil which extends over the whole country, from the foot of the mountains to the sea, being admir ably suited for its growth.
In Burma and Tenasserim cultivation has pro duced many varieties ; the Karens have distinctive names for more than forty. Karen mountain rice is
preferred by many to that which is raised by the Burmese on the low lands; yet it is said not to be so nutritious, and on this account bears a less price in the bazar. It is of all colours, from ivory-white to coal-black. Of the black rice the Karens prepare a kind of bread, which to. them supplies the place of ginger-bread. A port1on.of seethed rice is poured into a large mortar, with a prodigious quantity of sesanunn seeds. Two women then take their strong ebony pestles and pound it, striking alternately until it becomes a light bounding ma.% It is then thrown upon the eating stand, when the whole family seat them selves around it in oriental style, and dissever it with their swords. The Karen have another mode of preparing this kind of rice, which is particularly convenient for travellers. A quantity imboiled is thrust into joints of small bamboos, little water added, and the orifice closed up. It is then roasted, and if eaten with a little butter and salt it ia delicious. The Karen select only two varieties of bamboo for this purpose, and these impart to the rice Ft sweet, delicate flavour.
The Burmese rear nearly a hundred varieties of rice, but the principal distinctions between the different kinds are—hard grain, soft gmin, and glutinous rice. The Natsieng is the hardest, and is the rico which is principally exported to Europe. The Meedo is the chief of the soft grain varieties ; it is much preferred by the Burmese to tho hard-grained sorts, and it is certainly superior in taste when cooked; but the hard-grained rico is chiefly purchased by the merchants for export, as it keeps better, and the soft-grained rice is too much broken by European machinery in cleaning. The Tounguyeen, or hill rice of Burma and Tenasseriro, is called glutinous rice by Europeans, from the property it possesses when cooked of the grains all adhering in a thick glutinous mass. It is the chief article of food with the Karen and other hill tribes, but is not much eaten by the inhabitants of the low swampy plains, where the common rice is grown. Price of rice in the husk, 50 rupees per 100 baskets of 52 lbs. ; cargo rice, 95 rupees per 100 baskets of 63 lbs.; cleaned rice, 150 rupees per 100 baskets of 70 lbs.