The _kètsa_ grounds are covered before sowing with a layer of wood and straw ashes, so that they have quite a black appearance. Before this, however, the clods have been broken up and worked by the spade into a soft mud, with an inch or two of water over all, and on this the grain is sown broadcast, springing up in two or three weeks’ time and looking like a brilliant emerald carpet. There are usually a few heavy showers about the end of September or the early part of October, which are called _rànonòrana màmpisàra-taona_—_i.e._ “rain dividing the year”; but occasionally no rain falls until the rainy season regularly commences, so it is dry and dusty everywhere, the ground cracks, and everything seems thirsting for moisture. The heat increases as the sun gets more vertical, although the nights are pleasantly cool. Yet notwithstanding the dry soil the trees begin to blossom. Most conspicuous among them is the Cape lilac (_Melia azederach_), a tree introduced from South Africa about eighty or ninety years ago by the first L.M.S. missionaries, and now thoroughly naturalised in the interior of Madagascar. It grows to be a good-sized tree, and many hundreds of them are to be seen in and around Antanànarìvo, making the place gay with their profusion of pale greyish-lilac flowers, and fragrant with their strong perfume. [Sidenote: ORCHARDS] There are many large orchards in Imèrina, planted chiefly with mango-trees and presenting a refreshing mass of evergreen all the year round. But at this time, when looking from a little distance, the green of the leaves is largely mingled with a tinting of reddish-brown, caused by masses of flowers, in spikes, chiefly in the upper part of the trees. Later on the purplish tint of the new leaves gives another shade of colour. The produce of these trees is an excellent fruit; and there are three or four varieties of it, one kind, “the stone mango,” being more globular in shape; another, “the satin-mango,” being smaller, like a large plum, with a delicate flavour and scent. Another most widely grown fruit is the peach, which is more used cooked than eaten raw; and others are the _bìbàsy_ or loquat, the quince, the rose-apple, the orange, and the _ròtra_, a good-sized tree with a profusion of small black pear-shaped fruits, somewhat astringent when eaten raw, but excellent for cooking and for preserves. The vine also is largely cultivated, chiefly a black variety; while bananas and plantains and pine-apples are to be had all the year through. The low banks of earth which form the boundary walls of plantations are largely planted with a species of _Euphorbia_, of which there are two varieties, one with brilliant scarlet bracts and the other of pale yellow tint, the leaves appearing on the prickly stems later on.