As the season advances, the people everywhere begin to be busy digging up their rice-fields, both large and small, the clods being piled up in heaps and rows in order to give the soil the benefit of exposure to the sun and air. All this work is done by the native long-handled and long and narrow bladed spade, driven into the ground by the weight of the handle, as the Malagasy wear no shoes and so could not drive down the spade by the foot, in European fashion, while the plough is still an unknown implement to them. The water-courses, by which water is brought to every rice-plot, are now being repaired in all directions. The chief supply of water is from the springs found at the head of almost every valley, which is carefully led by channels cut and embanked round the curves of the hillsides, being often taken thus for a considerable distance from its source. Eventually this little canal resolves itself into a small stream traversing the valley, from which smaller channels convey the water to every field, so as to moisten the clods after they have been dug over. [Sidenote: THE WATER-SUPPLY] The water-supply for the great Bétsimitàtatra plain is derived from the Ikòpa river and its many tributaries. Canals tap these rivers at various points, in order to irrigate the fields at lower levels farther down their course. A large quantity of water is thus diverted from the rivers during September and October, so that the smaller streams are almost dry, and even the Ikòpa and its affluents, good-sized rivers at other times of the year, then become shallow and easily fordable. Before the end of October a large extent of the great plain, especially to the north and north-west, is completely planted with rice; and a green level, looking like one vast lawn, stretches away for many miles in this direction, without any break or visible divisions. This green is the _vàry alòha_, or “former rice,” the first crop, which will become ripe in the month of January, or early in February. Smaller expanses of bright green appear in other directions also, especially along the courses of the rivers, but a considerable extent of the plain directly to the west of the capital is still russet-brown in colour, and will not be planted until a month or two later. From this will come the later rice-crop, the (_vàry_) _vàky ambiàty_, which is planted in November or December and becomes fit for cutting about April. This latter crop is so called because the flowering of the _ambiàty_ (_Vernonia appendiculata_) shrub, about November, gives notice to the people that planting-time has come. This shrub is very conspicuous about this time of the year from its masses of white—slightly tinged with purple—flowers.