downy at the back, is the surest intimation of the plants being rich in indigo.  Plants that are ready for cutting in July and August, are usually the most productive.

In the western provinces from sixteen to twenty maunds of plant is considered a good produce per biggah.  In the upper provinces the produce of the best crop, which is sown directly the rains commence, is not more then ten maunds per biggah.  The factory maund is equal to about seventy-eight pounds.  One thousand maunds of plant are considered as producing quite an average quantity of indigo if this amounts to four maunds.  Adopting another mode of estimate, Mr. Ballard says, that in Bengal an average crop may he considered to be from ten to twelve bundles, over an extensive cultivation, in a good season, from each Bengal biggah; the sheaf or bundle being measured by a six-feet cord or chain.  Speaking of the produce in Tirhoot, the same gentleman says the “luggie,” or measuring rod, varies throughout the district.  The common Tirhoot biggah, is, I believe, equal to two-and-a-half or three Bengal biggahs (about an English acre).  Its produce varies according to the size of the luggie, the fertility of the soil, and accidents of season; eight to ten hackery loads, however, is generally considered a good average return.  South and east of Tirhoot, one hundred maunds from six hundred biggahs, including “khoonti,” or a second cutting, is reckoned a successful result.  In another part of the district, including Sarun, where the “luggie” is larger, the average produce is about one-third better.  As we measure our plant on the ground (he adds), the bundle system is unknown here; but, I believe, forty-five or fifty Tirhoot hackery loads of plants (estimated to yield a maund of dry indigo), will be found equal to two hundred Bengal bundles.—­("Trans.  Agri.  Hort.  Soc., vol. ii. p. 23.”)

In Oude the jamowah, or crop sown in May, yields on an average twenty maunds, or say thirteen bundles, per biggah (160 feet square).  The “assaroo,” or rain sowings, producing a very inferior plant, the average return is not more than three maunds, or two bundles.  The “khoonti,” or crop of the next year from the same plants, averages fifteen maunds, or ten bundles per biggah.

In Central and Western India, the plants are allowed to produce the second and even the third year, according to some statements; but in Bengal the same stocks are rarely suffered to yield a second crop:  being nearly all on lands that are under water in the height of the inundation, the stock is rotted in the ground.  Mr. Ballard, speaking of the duration of the plant, says that, as for three years’ plant and “khoonti,” it is a mere chimera, like the many others with which the planters have hitherto deluded themselves, and which it only requires a little reflection to overthrow.  A biggah may be cut here and there, on an extensive cultivation, but it can never