the vat, as that obtained from spring sowings, and some think the quality of the produce inferior.  But there is no expense of cultivation, and the liabilities of the crop to failure are such a discouragement to cost and labor in rearing it, that the October sowing is followed by most planters who can obtain suitable land.  The second period of sowing is the spring, with the first rains of March, or even the end of February.  The land having been measured and placed under its slight course of tillage during the two or three preceding mouths, is sown broadcast as soon as the ground has been well moistened, or even in prospect of approaching rain.  The quantity of seed used for this autumn sowing is generally more than what is considered requisite for spring sowing; six seers at the former and four at the latter season per biggah, in Bengal, is the quantity usually allowed.

Some cultivators commence the autumn sowing as early as at the close of September, or as soon as the low lands are in a state to permit the operation after the inundation has subsided.  This seed time may be said to continue until the end of December, and the crops from these sowings often yield an average produce, if the lands are not very low and wet.  If they are, the sowing had better be delayed until January, or even February, for the crops from these latter sowings are usually the most productive, and the dye obtained from them the finest.  The object for thus delaying the sowing is, that the young plants may have a more genial season for vegetation.  Those who prefer sowing earlier, and yet are aware of the importance of saving the young plants as much as possible from the comparative low temperature of the season, sow some other crop with their indigo.  Til, the country linseed, is good for this purpose in high lying soils.  But I never knew an intermixture of crops that was not attended by inconveniences and injuries more than was compensated by the advantages gained.

The success of sowings during March and April is very doubtful.  It depends entirely upon the occurrence of rain, which in those months is proverbially uncertain.  If the season should be sufficiently wet, the sowing may be performed in May; but a June sowing is very rarely remunerating.  The rains setting in during the latter part of this month so promote the growth of weeds, that the young plants are choked and generally destroyed.  The exceptions only occur in high lands, in unusually propitious seasons, and ought never to be relied upon except when the earlier sowings have failed.  To protract the manufacturing season, some planters begin sowing upon low lying lands in the hot season, for the chance of a crop at the commencement of the rains; and they sow at the close of the rains with the hope of, as it were, stealing another in the next year.  In the western provinces sowing necessarily occurs in the dry weather, usually in March and April, though occasionally either a little