Whilst the sawahs have been thus in preparation to receive the padi a small, adjacent, and convenient spot of good soil has been chosen, in which the seed-grain is sown as thick as it can well lie to the ground, and is then often covered with layers of lalang (long grass, instead of straw) to protect the grain from the birds, and perhaps assist the vegetation.  When it has grown to the height of from five to eight inches, or generally at the end of forty days from the time of sowing, it is taken up in showery weather and transplanted to the sawah, where holes are made four or five inches asunder to receive the plants.  If they appear too forward the tops are cropped off.  A supply is at the same time reserved in the seed-plots to replace such as may chance to fail upon removal.  These plantations, in the same manner as the ladangs, it is necessary to cleanse from weeds at least twice in the first two or three months; but no maize or other seed is sown among the crop.  When the padi begins to form the ear or to blossom, as the natives express it, the water is finally drawn off, and at the expiration of four months from the time of transplanting it arrives at maturity.  The manner of guarding against the birds is similar to what has been already described; but the low ground crop has a peculiar and very destructive enemy in the rats, which sometimes consume the whole of it, especially when the plantation has been made somewhat out of season; to obviate which evil the inhabitants of a district sow by agreement pretty nearly at the same time; whereby the damage is less perceptible.  In the mode of reaping likewise there is nothing different.  Upon the conclusion of the harvest it is an indispensable duty to summon the neighbouring priests to the first meal that is made of the new rice, when an entertainment is given according to the circumstances of the family.  Should this ceremony be omitted the crop would be accursed (haram) nor could the whole household expect to outlive the season.  This superstition has been by the Mahometans judiciously engrafted on the stock of credulity in the country people.

The same spot of low ground is for the most part used without regular intermission for several successive years, the degree of culture they bestow by turning up the soil and the overflowing water preserving its fertility.  They are not however insensible to the advantage of occasional fallows.  In consequence of this continued use the value of the sawah grounds differs from that of ladangs, the former being, in the neighbourhood of populous towns particularly, distinct property, and of regularly ascertained value.  At Natal for example those consisting between one and two acres sell for sixteen to twenty Spanish dollars.  In the interior country, where the temperature of the air is more favourable to agriculture, they are said to sow the same spot with ladang rice for three successive years; and there also it is common to sow onions as soon as the stubble is burned off.