Page:Gódávari.djvu/96

72 believe that the best time for sowing paddy is the mrigasíra kárti, which begins about the end of the first week in June; the anúrádhá kárti (the latter part of December) is a name of happy augury, suggesting the harvest and the fulfilment of ryot's hopes; thunder on the first day of the magha kárti is the happiest possible omen for the future, and 'will make even a pole on a fort wall grow'; and so on. On the day before harvest the ryots run round their fields thrice repeating the name of the village goddess and crying out that she has given them a good crop. They then cut three handfuls of ears to represent the goddess and sacrifice fowls to them. When measuring the first heap of paddy of the first harvest of the year, they pour boiled rice-flour over it to propitiate the belly-god.

Next to paddy, the irrigated crops chiefly grown are sugarcane, betel, turmeric and plantains. Cocoanut and areca palms are also largely raised in Amalápuram and Nagaram taluks, and are occasionally irrigated. Sugar-cane is grown everywhere except in the Agency and the Tuni division, but is commonest in Peddápuram, Rámachandrapuram, Cocanada, Nagaram and Rajahmundry taluks. Betel on wet lands appears to be almost confined to Rámachandrapuram and Nagaram taluks and turmeric to Peddápuram, Rajahmundry and Amalápuram, in which last it is raised without irrigation. Plantains are found chiefly in Rámachandrapuram, Amalápuram and Nagaram. In Rajahmundry and elsewhere a kind of sweet potato ( mádapalam dumpa) is much cultivated.

As elsewhere, paddy is frequently grown year after year on the same land. When other crops are cultivated, a definite rotation is observed, but this differs widely in different parts. The ryots of Peddápuram and Pithápuram, for example, consider that an interval of two years is sufficient between two crops of sugar-cane, while those of Cocanada, Rajah- mundry and Amalápuram say that four years is necessary, and those of Rámachandrapuram and Nagaram from six to eight years. In the cultivation of sugar-cane, the ground is sometimes broken up with a plough and sometimes with a crowbar. When a plough is used, the field is first well manured (in December or January) and then ploughed (without being flooded) from five to ten times. The ryots say the soil should be brought into such a soft and powdery condition that the footprints of the birds should be easily seen in it, and that a chatty full of water should neither spill nor break when dropped on to it. The field, still unirrigated, is next divided