Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c20.30
Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c20.30
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c20.30
Rice is supposed to be the least exhausting of any crop. It occupies the ground but a short time and binds it less than any other culmiferous plant.¹² The water and moisture by which it is continually surrounded, keeps the soil soft, divided, and pulverized. It is by some causes like these, that the Indian farmer is enabled to repeat the same crop for many years in the same field with this species of grain. We must allow something also to the extraordinary fruitfulness of the soil, and the regularity of the climate.¹³