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2 the efficacy of sacrifices in promoting the growth of their crops, and they
3 speak of the fertilizing effect of thunder-storms occurring at particular
4 periods. These last they mention without reference to the rain which
5 generally accompanies them, and it is just possible that in this, as in so
6 many other instances, the observation of ages has discovered a cause
7 ‘and effect which have escaped the researches of Science.
8 The cultivation of dry grain is not: only the most extensive, but the
9 most certain crop in the climate of Mysore. It is sown, according to
10 the different kinds of grain, from the beginning of June till the middle
11 of November, and the successive crops.are all got in by the end of
12 January. From May till September inclusive, the South-west Monsoon,
13 and the thunder-storms which precede and folloy it, furnish a spontane-
14 ous supply of water for the crops: after a short interval, seldom without
15 occasional showers, the North-East Monsoon contributes its influence until
16 Décember, when heavy dews complete the growth and maturity of the
17 remaining crops.
18 Although eight months of the year are occupied by the labors of the
19 dry crop, it is not necessary to a moderate degree of success that
20 the weather of the whole of that period should be entirely seasonable. If
21 disappoipted in the season for the early grains, the Ryots have recourse to
22 those which it is-proper to sow at a later period, and on the whole the
23 success is more certain than in'those wet lands which depend on artifi-
24 cial reservoirs. Gentle and intermitting rain may have furnished suffi-
25 cient moisture for the dry crop, but the filling of the reservoirs requires
26 a heavy and continued fall, which the surface of the earth is not capable
27 of absorbing.
28 It is owing to these circumstances, and to the fact of a dry grain, Ragy,
29 (the Cynosurus corocanus of Botanists,) being the favorite food of nine-
30 tenths of the people, that wet cultivation, except of garden produce, is
31 looked upon with disfavor and followed with aversion.
32 These remarks do not apply to the wet cultivation which depends on
33 the anicuts of the Cavery and some of the other rivers, which will gra-
34 dually be considerably extended. It is considered the most certain of
35 all crops.
36 The course of cultivation generally pursued i is as follows. On tho fall
37 of the first shower of rain the tillage of the dry fields commences, and ag
38 other showers occur, the land has to undergo a course of six ploughings.
39 It is then considered fit to receive the manure which is incorporated with