The whole being brought as nearly as possible to a level, that the water may lie equally upon it the sawah is, for the more effectual securing of this essential point, divided into portions nearly square or oblong (called piring, which signifies a dish) by narrow banks raised about eighteen inches and two feet wide. These drying become harder than the rest, confine the water, and serve the purpose of footways throughout the plantation. When there is more water in one division than another small passages are cut through the dams to produce an equality. Through these apertures water is also in some instances introduced from adjacent rivers or reservoirs, where such exist, and the season requires their aid. The innumerable springs and rivulets with which this country abounds render unnecessary the laborious processes by which water is raised and supplied to the rice grounds in the western part of India, where the soil is sandy: yet still the principal art of the planter consists, and is required, in the management of this article; to furnish it to the ground in proper and moderate quantities and to carry it off from time to time by drains; for if suffered to be long stagnant it would occasion the grain to rot. TRANSPLANTATION. Whilst the sawahs have been thus in preparation to receive the padi a small, adjacent, and convenient spot of good soil has been chosen, in which the seed-grain is sown as thick as it can well lie to the ground, and is then often covered with layers of lalang (long grass, instead of straw) to protect the grain from the birds, and perhaps assist the vegetation. When it has grown to the height of from five to eight inches, or generally at the end of forty days from the time of sowing, it is taken up in showery weather and transplanted to the sawah, where holes are made four or five inches asunder to receive the plants. If they appear too forward the tops are cropped off. A supply is at the same time reserved in the seed-plots to replace such as may chance to fail upon removal. These plantations, in the same manner as the ladangs, it is necessary to cleanse from weeds at least twice in the first two or three months; but no maize or other seed is sown among the crop. When the padi begins to form the ear or to blossom, as the natives express it, the water is finally drawn off, and at the expiration of four months from the time of transplanting it arrives at maturity. The manner of guarding against the birds is similar to what has been already described; but the low ground crop has a peculiar and very destructive enemy in the rats, which sometimes consume the whole of it, especially when the plantation has been made somewhat out of season; to obviate which evil the inhabitants of a district sow by agreement pretty nearly at the same time; whereby the damage is less perceptible. In the mode of reaping likewise there is nothing different. Upon the conclusion of the harvest