In Tirhoot the sowings commence about the latter end of February or the beginning of March, if by that time there is sufficient warmth in the atmosphere to ensure a healthy vegetation.  Light soils are sown on one close ploughing; heavy soils on two, with from four to eight seers of seed, in proportion to the size of the biggah.  After strewing the seed, the field should be harrowed down by two turns of the harrow, and then again by two turns more after the third day.  In case of rain before the plant appears (which it ought to do on the sixth or seventh day), if a slight shower, the harrow should be used again; if very heavy, it were best to turn up the ground and re-sow.  If rain fall after the appearance of the plant, and before it has got past four leaves, and attained sufficient strength to resist the hard crust before alluded to, immediate recourse must be had to drilling.  In fact, the closest attention is required to watch the state of the young crop for a month at least after the sowings; if it yield the least, or assume a sickly appearance, drills are the only resource.  These, if applied in time, in all March, for instance, or before the middle of April at latest, are generally successful, not only in restoring plants, but recovering such as may have become sickly from want or excess of moisture, or any other cause.  In dry seasons they have been known to give a crop when broadcast sowings have failed.  Each drill, with a good pair of bullocks, should do five biggahs a day.  They are regulated to throw from three to four seers per biggah, but the quantity can be increased or diminished at pleasure.  The natives do not employ them in their grain sowings, but commonly adopt a contrivance with their own plough for sowing in furrows, whenever their fields are deficient in moisture.  The drill employed in Tirhoot resembles considerably the implement known by that name in England.  It is found not only to effect a great saving of seed, ten seers being there sown broad-cost on a biggah of 57,600 feet square, and only seven seers by this drill; but also materially to improve the quality and regularity of the growth of the plant.  Experience has demonstrated, that the more lateral room the plants have, the more abundant is their produce of leaves, in which the coloring matter chiefly resides.  The seed employed should always be as new as possible, for though, if carefully preserved, it vegetates when one year old, and even when nearly two years old has produced a moderate crop, yet this has been under circumstances of an unusually favorable season and soil.  The plants from old seed rarely attain a height of more than a foot before they wither and die.  As frauds are very likely to be practised by giving old seed the glossiness and general appearance of new, great circumspection should be shown by the planter, who does not grow his own, in obtaining seed from known parties.

Planters in the lower provinces are