the Duccan, the alluvial tracts in
the basin of the Ganges or Nerbudda. Thorough working of the soil is
necessary, and in stations where the market price of cauliflower is
usually over four annas per head, as is the case in many parts of
Southern India, the crop is well worth extra care in the preparation of
the soil. This process should be begun shortly after the rains, when the
soil is easily plowed or dug. It should then be turned up roughly to a
depth of a foot or fifteen inches. A month later the clods should be
broken with the mallet or clod crusher, and the plow put through the
ground a second time. When the soil has weathered a few weeks, the
scarifier or cultivator should be run over it once monthly until May. At
that time good decayed cow dung or poudrette should be spread one inch
deep, and any close growing crop which is not valuable, such as _sunn_,
_tag_, _chanamoo_, or _Crotolaria juncea_, should be sown to keep down
weeds and encourage the formation of nitric acid in the soil, which has
been proved to be effected to a greater extent under a crop than on bare
soil. During dry weather in August the crop should be pulled up and the
ground plowed or dug and the crop buried in the trenches to act as green
manure, and the land prepared for irrigation.

The seed-bed should be prepared by thorough digging and mixing about an
inch in depth of old manure; wood ashes and decayed sweepings having a
quantity of goat or sheep dung in it is well suited for the seed-bed at
this season. Cow dung is apt to have the larva of the dung beetle in
it--a very large caterpillar which destroys young plants by eating
through the stem under ground. The bed having been thoroughly watered,
the seed may be sown broadcast or in lines, and covered with a quarter
of an inch of fine, dry, sandy soil, and shaded from bright sunshine.
When the seedlings appear, gradually remove the shade. The most
convenient form of bed is not more than four feet in width, the length
being sufficient for the ground to be planted. One ounce of seed is
sufficient for a bed fifty feet square, which will give sufficient
plants for an acre if the seed is good. Sowing should be made once in
ten days, from the middle of August till the end of September. If the
garden has been neglected, or the district remarkable for the quantity
of grubs that yearly come out in August, spread a considerable part of
the garden with a thick coating of stable litter or dry leaves and