PLOUGHING.

In the plain or eastern country in good black soil it is usual to plough only once in several years. Ordinarily the land is considered fit for sowing after it has been stirred up a few inches with a kulav or harrow. When the land is overgrown with haryali Cynodon dactylon and kunda grasses, it is dug up with the pickaxe to bring up their long strong and tortuous roots to the surface. These are collected and removed from the field. When there is no ploughing the field is harrowed several times after a heavy April or May shower, and it is cleared of shrubs and weeds if there be any. The field is then fit for sowing. Ploughing is generally begun soon after the early crops are harvested in December or January, when the soil is moist and easily worked. As the soil dries, the clods become hard and stiff and after months of exposure to the weather, the lumps of earth become brittle and are easily broken down by the harrow or kulav. The plough is large and is drawn by eight bullocks. In the west the land is ploughed lengthwise with the light plough or nangri in April; the clods are then broken by pickaxes and clubs, and a large beam called dind is dragged over to level the surface. The field is cross-ploughed and ploughed along the original furrow. Manure, according to the husbandman's means, is spread over the soil generally broadcast out of a basket and the field is ready for the seed. Hilly and hard soils are first broken with pickaxes and crowbars, and afterwards ploughed with a large plough, the bushes having been cut down during the previous hot season and burnt on the ground.

SOWING.

The seed is sown either by the hand or by seed-drill. The seed is covered with the kulav or harrow. A sort of brush harrow follows the kulav. This is generally made of babhul branches. The brush harrow is used three or four times till the seedlings appear within a fortnight. Sheep are sometimes folded on the land for a night at this stage. The rows of young seedlings are styled kakryas.

MANURE.

The value of cowdung and sweepings as manure is generally understood, but artificial manures are not known. Rice and garden lands are invariably manured, but dry-crop, lands only as often as the husbandmen have the means. Alluvial or mali lands on river banks are not manured at all. Black and good brown soils are manured only once in three years, but in red and poorer brown manure has to be applied every second year at least and in some cases, if the husbandman can afford it, every year. Holders of garden lands generally use all the available manure of their farm yards for their mala or garden especially for sugarcane; and thus their dry-crop lands suffer more than those of second class husbandmen, who have no garden lands and who use all their manure in their dry-crop lands.

1. Farmyard Manure.

There are five kinds of manure. The first is mixed manure, which consists of crop stubble, ashes, droppings of cattle, urine, and every kind of rubbish stored in a pit near the husbandman's house. Here the heap rots. It is occasionally damped by the drainings from the cook room. As at night no grass is spread on the ground for cattle to lie down, there is no litter. Urine is either gathered by ducts and thrown into the pit, or is carefully mixed with the dung when cleaning the cattle shed every morning, before it is thrown into the pit. During the dry months cowdung is made into fuel-cakes about a foot in diameter, dried and stacked, and so it goes to the manure-pit for only seven months April to December. In large towns besides the home supply the husbandman can buy it of Gavlis or cowherds at the rupee rate of two cart-loads or thirty hundredweights of ordinary pit manure and three cart- loads or forty-five hundredweights if poor in quality. It is estimated that after setting aside what is wanted for other purposes an ordinary third class holding of about ten acres of dry-crop land with two pairs of plough bullocks, a milch buffalo, and perhaps a steer, would yearly yield five cartloads of manure or just enough for half an acre.

2. Nightsoil or Poudrette.

Nightsoil manure or sonkhat was formerly never used, but now the nightsoil manure prepared by the' Kolhapur municipality according to the dry-earth system is freely used by husbandmen of the surrounding villages and is highly valued especially for sugar-cane, tobacco, and other rich crops.

3. Sheepdung.

The third kind of manure consists of sheep and goat droppings. The husbandman engages a shepherd to fold his flocks on his field for a certain number of days and pays him in grain at the rate of 80 to 120 pounds grain worth about 3s. (Rs. 1½) a thousand sheep penned in his field a night.

4. Rab or Wood-ash Manure.

In the west stubble, weeds, and scrub-forest wood or rab are gathered, heaped on the field and burnt, and the ashes are mixed with soil by ploughing.

5. Green Manure.

Green manure is the fifth kind of manure. Bombay hemp or tag and sometimes sesame is sown and is allowed to grow for three months when it begins to flower. It is then ploughed in with the kulav. This manure is considered good for the sugarcane crop. The supply of manure is limited. An acre of sugarcane land receives from thirty-five to fifty carloads of mixed manure and the droppings and urine of a thousand sheep for six to eight days. Where it can be had half the quantity of nightsoil manure is sufficient for the same area. An acre of rice land requires about twenty cartloads, and an acre of dry-crop land which is manured every second third or fourth year as circumstances allow, receives generally ten carts. Sheep are folded on the land whenever available. It is considered essential to adopt this method of manuring for tobacco and chillies; The late jvari, cotton, gram, and wheat are generally sown without manure.

IRRIGATION.

There are no irrigation works, old or new, though Kolhapur, with ranges of hills here and there, is apparently favourably situated. There are no canals except a few pats or water-courses which dry by January or February, and, except at Kolhapur, where the Rankala and one or two other ponds water a few acres of garden land, there are no ponds or reservoirs large enough to water any considerable area. But a great scope exists for improving reservoirs by throwing embankments across the rivers in the hilly sub-divisions. What little irrigation exists is carried on chiefly from wells or budkis dug in stream beds. Water is taken out from these wells by the mot or water-bag. [Details of the working of the mot are given in the Belgaum Statistical Account, p. 241.] The number of wells has greatly increased within the last twenty years and many old wells have been substantially rebuilt. In 1881 the number of working wells was reported to be 7547. Everywhere the cultivators show a desire to avail themselves of the means of irrigation for garden crops which are more profitable than dry-crops. The chief irrigated crops are sugarcane, nachni, spelt wheat, chillies, turmeric, onions, garlic, and sweet potatoes. In 1881, of 559,736 acres, the total area under actual tillage, 15,290 acres or 2.73 per cent were watered.

WEEDING.

When the young plants have appeared above ground, weeding begins. Till the end of the second month it is generally carried by a light hoe or kolpa drawn by bullocks. After the second month when the crops grow too high to permit of bullock hoeing without damage, hand weeding is resorted to.

WATCHING.

From the time the grain forms, to drive off birds the crop is watched from a wooden platform generally raised in every field. The husbandman, who watches the crop, shouts and slings stones.

REAPING.

When it is ripe, the crop is either reaped with the sickle or pulled by the roots, and kept where it is cut for a few days to dry. It is then bound in sheaves and stacked with the ears of grain outward. The stack or buchad is kept a fortnight to a month, by the end of which the ears are thoroughly dried and the crop is carried to the threshing floor or khale.

THRESHING.

The threshing floor or khale is prepared in the hardest part of the field by wetting and beating the ground with wooden mallets till it is hard and smooth and then by smearing it with cowdung. An upright post about six feet high is set in the centre, and round this post are thrown the heads of grain or the whole plant, as the case may be, to be thrashed. A team of ten muzzled oxen is tied to the pole side by side and driven round and round to tread out the grain. It is estimated that a pair of bullocks can thrash out about 320 pounds (2 mans) of grain in a day; but however large the team may be, not more than two khandis (2 ⁶/₇ tons) can be trodden out at a time. Usually one khandi is the maximum on the floor at one time. Some crops such as hemp, castorseed, some pulses, kardai, and khapli or spelt are threshed by hand with sticks on the floor. Dry sesame plants are only shaken with the hand to set free the seed.

WINNOWING.

The grain is winnowed from the chaff by the help of the wind. Winnowing baskets or sups are filled with the grain and chaff as it comes from the threshing floor and are handed by one man to a second man who stands on a high stool called vavdi and empties the basket slowly with a shaking motion. The heavy grain falls on the ground prepared for it and the light chaff with dust is blown aside.

STORING.

In the east grain is often stored in under-ground chambers. Grain is also often in the east and always in the west stored in cylindrical baskets kept in the husbandman's house.

MIXED SOWINGS.

The sowing of mixed crops is a common practice with Kolhapur husbandmen. As many as nine- crops may be seen in the same row at the same time, alternating with a certain number of rows of the principal crop. Bajri as a principal crop is sown with tur, ambadi, matki, kulthi, and korte, in different proportions and in different combinations; shalu or late Indian millet, with castor seed, gram, barley, pavta, peas, and linseed; cotton with sesame, kulith, coriander, ova, fennel, carrot, kapusvalke, chillies, rala, and linseed; jondhla or early Indian millet, with udid, tur, ambadi, mug, and matki; bhuimug or earthnut, with maize, rajgira, chavli, and coriander; rice with tur and ambadi; ndchni with tur, ambadi, and maize; sdva with gidgyap a variety of jondhla, tur, and korte; khapli or spelt with mustard seed and maize; maize with pavta, castor seed, watermelons, bhopla or gourd, cucumber, bhendi, govari, and fennel; gram with kardai, mustard seed, and shalu or late Indian millet; and chillies with coriander and cotton. Besides the above, van is sown with maize, wheat with kardai and linseed, rala with maize, mug with rala, and chavli with nachni.

WOODASH TILLAGE.

Kumri or woodash tillage is much practised on the slopes of the Sahyadris. Under this tillage a patch of brushwood covered ground is chosen by the husbandman. In April or May he burns the bushes in the ground with branches of some other trees. If it is flat, the ground is ploughed, and, if sloping, only scratched by a pickaxe or kudal; and just after the first shower of rain, nachni is sown either by the seed-drill or broadcast. Before the crop ripens by the end of September or October, the field is weeded by hand twice or thrice. The average acre outturn in the first year is about 800 pounds of grain. In the second year sava, vari, or some other coarser grain is sown in the same ground without fresh burning of the soil. The average acre outturn in the second year is about 480 pounds. In superior soils generally sesame is raised in the third year, and then the land is allowed to lie fallow till it is again covered with scrub. Of late strict orders have been issued prohibiting this mode of tillage within five miles of the ridge of the Sahyadris, and it is probable the area under kumri tillage will greatly be curtailed as forest conservancy comes into force.

ROTATION OF CROPS.

The value of a change of cropping is well known, and rotation of crops, according to certain fixed rules, is observed. In ordinary rice land, rice is taken year by year, so in watered and other superior rice lands which are retentive of moisture, but with this difference that a second crop of peas, gram, beans, or khapli or watered wheat is raised; sugarcane, as a rule, is grown on the same land only once in three years. Sugarcane is followed either by jvari mixed with tur or rice and khapli or nachni and khapli or sweet potatoes in succession. Sometimes instead of khapli, brinjals, carrots, garlic or onions also follow rice or nachni. In the third year the soil is exhausted to a certain extent and is not in a state to yield a bumper crop. The husbandman then puts in such crops as tend to the healthy growth of sugarcane in the succeeding year. These crops are called bevads or preparatory crops. The usual sugarcane bevada are Bombay hemp, chillies, tobacco, udid, rala, and turmeric, among which hemp and chillies are considered the best. "When it follows rala, hemp is generally ploughed in as a green manure. In dry-crop lands near the Sahyadris or in kumri lands nachni in the first year is followed by sava in the second year and sesame or korte in the third year; or jvari in the first, nachni in the second, and hemp in the third; or harik in the first, barag in the second, and sesame in the third. In inferior lands under kumri tillage, no rotation will permit cropping for more than two years without fallow. In such lands nachni or hairik in the first year is followed by vari OR barag in the second year, and then by a long fallow of eight or nine years. In black soil where the holdings are small, husbandmen sow jvari and cotton alternately. But where holdings are large, a better rotation is adopted, namely cotton in the first year, tobacco in the second year, gram and wheat in the third year, and jvari in the fourth year. Gram is considered the best bevad or preparatory crop for jvari. It is also as a late crop raised successively in the same field for several years.

FALLOWS.

AS shown above fallows are very rare in the flat country of the eastern parts of the State. The fertility of the soil is maintained by the alternation of cereals with oilseeds pulses and fibre plants, by the mixtures of crops, and by manuring. In the western uplands crops are secured for three or four years, but fallows varying from three to twelve years are then necessary. Lastly in lands under kumri after two or at most three years of cropping absolute rest for seven to twelve years is needed to allow the scrub to grow again.