The process of preparing the field for rice culture, in the Kandian country, Ceylon, is very simple.

When the paddy is to be cultivated in mud, a piece of ground is enclosed in a series of squares or terraces, by ridges raised with mud and turf; a quantity of water is directed into the field from an adjacent stream or tank, and is allowed to remain on it for fifteen days; at the expiration of this time the field is ploughed with a yoke of buffaloes, which operation is repeated at the end of fifteen days more, when, by the rotting of the weeds and other matter, the field has become manured.  After another interval of fifteen days the field is again ploughed and the broken ridges are repaired.  Eight days after the field is harrowed, and subsequently rolled or levelled; and when the water has been let out the seed is sown, having in most instances been previously made to germinate, by being spread on platforms and kept wet.

The water is turned in during night, to prevent crabs and insects from destroying the seedlings, and let out during the day; and this they continue to do till the plants attain the height of one foot.  Water is only retained in the field until the ears are half ripe, otherwise they would ripen indifferently and be destroyed by vermin.  A variety of coast paddy, called “moottoo samboo,” was introduced into the Kandian province in 1832, which was found to produce a more abundant crop, by one third, than the native.  It is of six months growth.

In Kashmir rice is the staple of cultivation, and the practice adopted there is thus described by a writer in my “Colonial Magazine,” vol. x. p. 130.  It is sown in the beginning of May, and is fit to cut about the end of August.  The grain is either sown broadcast in the place where it is intended to stand till it is ripe, or thickly in beds, from which it is transplanted when the blade is about a foot high.  As soon as the season will admit after the 21st of March, the land is opened by one or more ploughings, according to its strength, and the clods are broken down by blows with wooden mattocks, managed in general by women, with great regularity and address; after which water is let in upon the soil, which for the most part of a reddish clay, or foxy earth, is converted into a smooth soft mud.  The seed grain, put into a sack of woven grass, is submerged in a running stream until it begins to sprout, which happens sooner or later, according to the temperature of the water and of the atmosphere, but ordinarily takes place in three or four days.  This precaution is adopted for the purpose of getting the young shoots as quickly as possible out of the way of a small snail, which abounds in some of the watered lands of Kashmir, but sometimes proves insufficient to defend it against the activity of this destructive enemy.  When the farmer suspects, by the scanty appearance of the plants above the water in which the grain has been sown, and by the presence of the snail