into small plots (spaces being left for the channels which are to be dug later on) either with a hoe or a plough.
The crowbar method of preparing the ground is partly adopted for the sake of economy, and so in this system manuring is also generally dispensed with. The jaggery which results is inferior, but the difference in the cost of cultivation is said to more than counterbalance this drawback. The land is dug up with the crowbar in January, and the clods are left to weather for ten days, when they are broken up and roughly powdered. The soil is not rendered sufficiently fine to be formed into plots without water, and the field has to be flooded.
Before planting the cuttings of sugar-cane the field is watered till it attains 'the consistency of cooked ragi' (ambali padunu) and then (in February or March) the cuttings are thrown on the ground and one end of them is pressed gently in with the foot. The tops are usually considered to make the best cuttings, but the rest of the cane is often used. The cuttings are kept in the shade for a fortnight before planting.
Regarding the irrigation of the crop, practice varies. In Peddápuram, for example, the field is flooded once a fortnight and then drained immediately. In Rámachandrapuram and Cocanada it is watered once a week, without draining off the water for six months; and then allowed to dry up as the rainy season approaches. The Peddápuram system is the better, since stagnant water injures the roots of the cane.1[1] Two months after being planted, the crop is manured round the roots with castor cake, green gram husk, bats' dung, or mud from the village site.2[2] In some places green gram is sown in the field and dug in as a green manure. Three weedings are made with a hoe (tolika) at intervals of a fortnight. When the crop has been about two months on the ground the plots are broken up and the irrigation trenches are dug, the soil from them being thrown round the roots of the cane. About four months after planting, the leaves are twisted round the canes to prevent them from cracking or being dried up by the sun, and to check the growth of weakening lateral shoots. In the fifth month the canes are supported by bamboos. The crop is cut in February with a bill-hook (póta katti) and made into jaggery the same day.
The canes are crushed in iron mills, and the juice is boiled for about two and a half or three hours with chunam (a piece
