Page:Gódávari.djvu/95

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AGRICULTURE AND IRRIGATION.
71

The second wet crop does not follow as close on the first as in Tanjore. In the latter district the ryots get seedlings ready for transplantation in the seed-bed before the harvest of the first crop is over, whereas in Gódávari it is believed that seedlings will not thrive until the warm 'corn wind' (payiru gáli), which is expected in December, sets in from the south. The first crop is harvested in November or December, and seedlings for the second crop are sown in December or January and are ready for transplantation in February and March. The preparation of the field for the second crop is a somewhat perfunctory operation. Levelling is generally omitted; and, in Amalápuram, manuring is generally omitted also. The kinds of paddy most commonly used (outside Bhadráchalam) are called garika sannam and dálava.

Where the second crop is a dry crop, it is generally green, black, Bengal, or horse-gram, gingelly, or sunn hemp. Beans (anumulu), ragi and onions are also raised. Except Bengal gram, gingelly, ragi and onions, these are generally sown a week before the harvest of the wet crop and left to take care of themselves. For Bengal gram and gingelly, the field is ploughed and the seed is covered by dragging a green, leafy branch (kampa) across it, or, in sandy soil by ploughing it in. Ragi and onions are transplanted into plots about two yards square, made after the field has been ploughed without water five or six times in the course of a week, and are watered a week after transplanting and thereafter once a month.

Both cambu and gingelly are not infrequently grown as a third crop, sometimes called the punása crop. In Tuni (perhaps-elsewhere also) they are put down at the beginning of the first wet-crop season on the chance of the rains being late or insufficient and it being therefore impossible to grow a wet crop at the proper time, if at all. If the rains come while the crop is on the ground, it is either ploughed up to make room for the paddy, or, if nearly ripe, is left to mature, the paddy transplantation being delayed accordingly.

In Rajahmundry and Rámachandrapuram third crops are sometimes secured by growing a short wet crop between June and September, followed by a dry crop harvested by January, and then by a short paddy crop of the garika sannam, dálava or rájabhógala varieties, which is harvested in May.

The Gódávari ryots divide the six months from June to December into twelve kártis of about a fortnight each, called by the names of various stars. To each of these periods some agricultural operation or other is considered particularly appropriate. Even the Kóyas and hill Reddis, for example,