wo months a
second is made; after another interval a third, and even a fourth; but
each of these is of diminished value.

_Culture in India._--For the following excellent account of the modes
of culture, and practice, &c., in Bengal, and other parts of India, I
am indebted to Mr. G. W. Johnson, one of the correspondents of my
"Colonial Magazine." Mr. Johnson, besides his own Indian experience,
has consulted all the best authorities, and the opinions of
contributors to the leading periodicals of Calcutta on this important
subject:--

When America became known to Europeans, its indigo became to them a
principal object of cultivation, and against their skill the native
Hindostanee had nothing to oppose, but the cheapness of his simple
process of manufacture. The profit and extent of the trade soon
induced Europeans to brave the perils of distance and climate to
cultivate the plant in Hindostan; but these obstacles, added to the
superior article manufactured by the French and Spaniards in the
West Indies, would long have held its produce in India in
subordination, if the anarchy and wars incident to the French
Revolution, especially when they reached St. Domingo, had not almost
annihilated the trade from the West, and consequently proportionally
fostered that in the East. The indigo produce of St. Domingo was
nearly as large as that of all the other West India islands
together. From the time that the negroes revolted in that island,
the cultivation of indigo has increased in Hindostan, until it has
become one of its principal exports, and the quality of the article
manufactured is not inferior to that of any other part of the world.

The most general mode of obtaining the necessary supply of _weed_,
as it is called by the planter, is as follows:--The land attached to
the factory is parcelled out among the ryots or farmers, who
contract to devote a certain portion of their farm to the
cultivation of indigo, and to deliver it, for a fixed price per
bundle, at the factory; a sum of money, usually equal to half the
probable produce, has to be advanced to the ryot by the planter, to
enable him to accomplish the cultivation, and to subsist upon until
the crop is ready for cutting.

If, as is generally the case, sufficient land is not attached to the
factory to supply it with plant, the owner obtains what he requires