to be covered with the salt water.  This is generally done in December.  The sea water remains on the land for about nine weeks, or till the middle of February, which is the proper time for sowing the seed.  The salt water is now let out, and as the ground cannot, on account of the mud, be ploughed, buffaloes are driven over every part of the field, and a few seeds of the rice thrown into every footmark; the men employed in sowing being obliged to crawl along the surface on their bellies, with the basket of seed on their backs; for were they to assume an upright position, they would inevitably be bogged in the deep swamp.  The holes containing the seed are not covered up, but people are placed on the bunds to drive away birds, until the young grain has well sprung up.  The land is not manured, the stagnant salt water remaining on it being sufficient to renovate the soil.  The rice seed is steeped in water, and then in dung and earth for three or four days, and is not sown until it begins to sprout.  The farmer has now safely got over his sowing, and as this rice is not as in other cases transplanted, his next anxiety is to get a supply of fresh water; and for this he watches for the freshes which usually come down the river about the middle and end of February, and if the river then reaches his bhull, he opens his bund, and fills the enclosure with the fresh water.  The sooner he gets this supply the better, for the young rice will not grow in salt water, and soon withers if left entirely dry.

The welfare of the crop now depends entirely on the supply of fresh water.  A very high inundation does not injure the bhull cultivation, as here the water has free space to spread about.  In fact the more fresh water the better.  If, however, the river remains low in June, July, and August, and the south-west monsoon sets in heavily on the coast, the sea is frequently driven over the bhulls and destroys the crops.  It is in fact a continual struggle between the salt water and the fresh.  When the river runs out strong and full, the bhulls prosper, and the sea is kept at a distance.  On the other hand, the salt water obtains the supremacy when the river is low, and then the farmer suffers.  In this manner much bhull crop was destroyed in the monsoons of 1851 and 1852, during the heavy gales which prevailed in those seasons.  The rice is subject to attacks also of a small black sea crab, called by the natives Kookaee, and which, without any apparent cause, cuts down the growing grain in large quantities, and often occasions much loss.

The crop when ripe, which, if all goes well will be about the third week in September, is reaped in the water by men, either in boats, or on large masses of straw rudely shaped like a boat, and which being made very tight and close, will float for a considerable time.  The rice is carried ashore to the high land, where it is dried, and put through the usual harvest process of division, &c.:  and the bhull is then on the fall of the river again ready for its annual pickling.