Soils.—­Indigo delights in a fresh soil; new lands, of similar staple to others before cultivated, always surpass them in the amount and quality of their produce.  Hence arises the superior productiveness of the lands annually overflowed by the Ganges, the earthy and saline deposits from which in effect renovate the soil.  The further we recede from the influence of the inundation, the less adapted is the soil for the cultivation of indigo.  The staple of the soil ought to be silicious, fertile, and deep.  Mr. Ballard, writing on the indigo soils of Tirhoot, says that high “soomba,” or light soils, are generally preferred, being from their nature and level less exposed to the risk of rain or river inundation; but they are difficult to procure, and, moreover, require particular care in the preparation.  Next in estimation is “doruss,” a nearly equal mixture of light earth and clay; a soil more retentive of moisture in a dry season than any other.  “Muttyaur,” or heavy clay soils, are generally avoided, although in certain seasons, with mild showers of rain, they have been known to answer.  The safest selection I should conceive to be an equal portion of soomba and doruss.  In a country, however, interspersed with jheels and nullahs, it is difficult to form a cultivation without a considerable mixture of low lands, more or less, according to the situation of the Assamee’s fields.  Great care should be taken, at all events, to guard against oosur lands, or such as abound with saltpetre; these can be most easily detected in the dry months. Puchkatak, that is, lands slightly touched with oosur, have been known to answer, as partaking more of the nature of doruss soil; but the crop is generally thin, although strong and branchy.

There is another description of land that should be cautiously avoided.  It goes by the name of jaung, and is a light soil, with a substratum of sand from six to twelve inches below the surface.  The plant generally looks very fine in such fields till it gets a foot high, when the root touching the sand, and having no moisture to sustain it, either dies away altogether, or becomes so stunted and impoverished as to yield little or nothing in the cutting.  Of the daub or dearab (alluvial) land, says Mr. Ballard, there is scarcely any in the district except what falls to the lot of my own factories, being situated on the banks of the Ganges and Great Gunduck.  Of bungur, a stiff reddish clay soil, there is little in Tirhoot; it pervades the western provinces, and is best adapted for Assaroo sowings, which do not succeed in Tirhoot.

Preparation of the soil.—­The root of the indigo plant being fusiform, and extending to about a foot in length, requires the soil to be loosened thoroughly to that depth at least.  Experience teaches that the fineness of the tilth to which the soil is reduced previously to the seed being committed to it, is one very influential