Rice is cultivated much more extensively than any other crop in India : indeed there are very few provinces in which it is not the most prevalent crop. There seem to be three kinds of it in the south of India : the first is reap ed in September ; the second in December and January; and the third in March or April. But in most parts of India there are only two kinds ; the common rice, and that kind of which the grains are very white and small, with an excellent aromatic taste. There are three modes of sowing this grain practised throughout India generally. According to one mode, the seed is sown dry on the fields which are to bring it to maturity : this is called the dry seed cultivation. By the second mode, the seed is steeped in water till it vegetates, and the field in which it is to be sown is watered till it becomes a kind of puddle ; this is the sprouted cultivation. The last mode is by transplantation. A piece of rich ground is selected, in which the seed is sown ; and as soon as the plants have attained the height of a foot they are transplanted. The means used to sink it to the bottom of the field, which is covered with water, are very simple and effectual. "A small ball of clay is formed around the root of each stalk, to carry it perpendi cularly to the bottom,and to secure it nourishment, till the roots, by spreading, procure a more liberal supply." Ten nant, xi. 126. The first mode is necessarily confined to the higher grounds; the other modes are followed on such lands as lie low, and can be easily watered. The Ryot is determined with respect to his time of sowing rice, by ob serving its natural seasons. In a wild state, it sows itself in the first month of winter, and at the approach of spring begins to appear above the ground : it ripens during the rainy season, and drops its seed at the beginning of winter. But, in order that he may have two crops of this necessary and valuable grain, the Ryot sows it not only at its natural period of vegetation, but also during the second month of the rainy season, that he may reap a second harvest at the beginning of winter. In those parts of Hindostan Proper, where rice is cultivated on good land, well managed, five quarters per acre are deemed a large produce, or a return of fifteen for one on the seed. In some parts of Mysore, the first quality of land will produce from 47 to 49 bushels; the second from 35 to 42 ; and the third from 17 to 24 bushels of rice. Two crops of this grain are very seldom grown on the same field in one year. In the northern parts ol the province of Cochin, however, the rice grounds, which lie in narrow wallies extremely well watered, enable the cultivators to raise two crops annually on them. This is also the ease upon land of the best quality in the Rung poor district of Bengal ; two crops of rice being obtained in the year, besides an intermediate one of mustard seed. In the Vellater district of the province of Malabar, there are a few remarkable spots of land watered by perennial streams, which produce three crops of rice annually. Where it is necessary to use artificial means to water the rice, the rice fields are divided into squares of 100 or 120 yards, round the sides of which there arc borders so high and firmly consaneted as to keep in a sufficient quantity of water: furrows are made from one square to another, by which the water is, without much labour, carried all over the rice field. At harve sa it is cut with a sickle ; nearly lour feet of the straw is 'eft on the ground, in order that it may rot and serve as manure. It is made into sheaves, which are beat on the ground as a substitute for threshing ; but as all the grain cannot thus be got out, the sheaves are again beaten with a bamboo to obtain the remainder. Rice is cleaned with a wooden pestle and mortar ; and this opera tion. like all the other operations connected with husband ry, is paid for in produce ; the person performing it bind ing himselt to deliver back five-eighths of the weight, in clean rice, receiving three-eighths with the husks for nis labour. It is afterwards scalded in hot water ; spread out on mats to dry in the sun ; and afterwards deposited in patagas, or granaries built of teak wood. As it is of the utmost importance to preserve rice in cases of scarcity or famine, the East India Company several years ago erected a very large granary at Patna for this purpose. " It is a building of stone, in the shape of a bee hive, with two winding stair-cases on the outside, which have been as cended on horsback : by those stairs the grain is poured in at the top, there being a single door at the bottom to take it out ; the walls at the bottom, though 21 feet thick, have given way. It cost 120,000 rupees ; but notwithstand ing the expense of erection, and the size of the building, it would not be of much use even if it were kept constantly filled, as it would not contain one day's consumption for the inhabitants of the province of Bahar, in which it stands.
The district of Dacca Jellallpoor is deemed, !torn the im mense quantity of rice which it produces. the natural gra nary of that grain for all the rest of the province of Bengal.
Maize is little grown, except in the western provinces of Hindostan Proper, on the poorer soils and hilly grounds. Millet is much mote extensively cultivated ; there are se veral varieties of it ; though a small eared grain, it furnish es a great quantity of straw, 10 feet long, which is used as provender for the cattle. The Doab is particularly distin• guished for its culture of millet. Some of the oil plants have already been mentioned; but hes.des mustard an• flax, there are sesamum, Eec. some of which occupy the cold season, and others ripen soon after the rains. The crop of raggy, in the south of India, is by far the most important of any raised in the dry field, and supplies all the lower classes with common food.
Flax is not cultivated in any part of India for the pur pose of manufacturing into linen, but only for its oil ; and the common hemp is grown only, that an intoxicating li quor called bang, may be made from it. But sunn, hemp, has lately been cultivated at Luckipoor, Chittagong. Corn mercolly, Buddaut, Dacca, Malda, Cuttorah, &c.; the best and finest is that of Luckipoor, which by experiments has been pros ed to be considerably superior in point of strength to Petersburg!) hemp; all the resi, except the Cuttorah, are also superior in this respect to Petcrsburgh. The Concan district of the province of Bajapoor is also noted for the ex cellence of its hemp.
Sugar has probably been cultivated to a considerable ex tent in Hindostan from time immemorial: the mane of Geur, the ancient capital of Bengal, a city highly celebrated in Hindostan antiquity, is apparently derived from gur. which, both in the ancient and modern languages of India, signifies raw sugar ; and that the inhabitants of India have long un derstood the mode of manufacturing it, seems evident, from the circumstance, that the name given to the manu factured produce, in all the European languages without exception, as well as in the Persian, Greek, and Latin, is derived from the Sanscrit term for manufactured sugar, Sarcara. It is at present cultivated to a great extent in almost every part of India; in Hindustan Proper, it thrives best in the districts of Benares, Bahar, Rungpoor, Herb poom, Burdwan, and Alidnapoor ; in fact there is scarcely a tract of liind under the Bengal presidency, from Benares to Rungpoor, and from the borders of Assam to Cuttack, in which it is not cultivated to a considerable extent, and with great success. If we proceed farther south, we shall find it an object of great attention, and the source of much profit in the Delta of the Godavery, and in the Zemindaries of Pcddapoor and Pettipoor, along the banks of the Ely seram river, in the northern Circars. In' the neighbour hood of Cudapah, in the ceded districts, the sugar cane is also grown to a great extent. In short, wherever the soil is fit for this crop, and agriculture has made any advances, it is cultivated more or less in Hindostan. As it requires a soil of great fertility, it is not cultivated on the same ground a second time, till after the intervention of two or three other crops ; and such soils as are fit for it let at a very high) rate. One acre of sugar cane will yield on an average about ten candy of sugar, each candy weighing 500 lib. : hut the sugar cane, especially that of an inferior quality, is also made into the inspissated juice called jagary, and of this an acre will produce more. The annual pro duce of 1101 acres in the Zemindaries of Peddapoor and Pettipoor is 44 cwt. per acre ; consequently their whole produce will be 27 hogsheads of 18 cwt. each, which is about one fourth part of the produce of Jamaica. The cane is planted in January, on land which has been either manured, or prepared by a fallow, or the growth of legu minous plants : it must be watered repeatedly before the rains set in : in about ten months from the time of their planting, the canes are ready to cut. The apparatus for making the manufacturer's sugar is very simple, consist ing of a mill erected in the field, or earthen or stone mor tar, and wooden pestle, turned by two bullocks, boiling pots of common earthen ware, and boilers of country iron plates rivetted. Six pounds of juice will yield one pound of su gar from good canes. The refuse is given to cattle, or carried away by the labourers : the sugar harvest in Hin dostan, as in the West. Indies, is a joyous and busy season.