About Malda, “the land is first ploughed in the month of Cartick, length and breadth ways, and harrowed in like manner; four or five days after it is again ploughed and harrowed, as before, twice.  In the month of Aghun, the whole land is covered with fresh earth, again twice ploughed, and harrowed in different directions, and then manured with dung.  Fifteen or twenty days afterwards it is to be twice ploughed, as before; eight or ten days after which, it is to be slightly manured with dung, and the refuse of oil, mixed together; then twice ploughed and harrowed in different directions, so that the clods of earth brought be well mixed together with the land.  This preparation continues until the 20th or 25th of the month Pows.”

In the vicinity of Dacca, during “Cautic or Augun (October, November) the Ryots begin to prepare their ground.  They first dig a trench round their fields, and raise a mound of about three feet in height.  If the ground to be cultivated is waste, about nine inches of the surface are taken off, and thrown without the enclosure.  The ground is ploughed to the depth of nine inches more.  The clods are broken, and the earth made fine.  In Maug or Faugun (January, February) the sugar cane is planted; a month afterwards earth is raised about the plants; after another month this is repeated.  The crop is cut in Poous and Maug (December, January).  If the ground be not waste, but cultivated, the surface is not taken off.  After cutting the crop, it is not usual again to grow sugar cane on the same ground for eighteen months, on account of the indifferent produce afforded by a more early planting.

In the Zillah, North Mooradabad, the land is broken up at the end of June.  After the rains have ceased it is manured, and has eight or ten ploughings.  This clears it of weeds.  In February it is again manured and ploughed four or five times, and just before the sets are planted, some dung, four cart-loads to each cutcha beegah of low land, and five cart-loads to high land, are added.  The land is well rolled after the four last ploughings, and again after the cuttings are set.

About Benares and the neighbouring districts, Mr. Haines says, that owing to the hot winds which prevail “from March until the setting in of the annual rains in June or July, the lands remain fallow till that period.  In the mean time, those fields that are selected for sugar cane are partially manured by throwing upon them all manner of rubbish they can collect, and by herding their buffaloes and cattle upon them at night, though most of the manure from the latter source is again collected and dried for fuel.

When the annual rains have fairly set in, and the Assarree crops sown (in some instances I have seen an Assarree crop taken from the lands intended for sugar cane), they commence ploughing the cane lands, and continue to do so four or five times monthly (as they consider the greater number of times the fields are turned up at this period of the season, the better the crop of cane will be), till the end of October, continuing to throw on the little manure they can collect.