Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c20.54

c20.54

The superiority of production is vastly of warm climates. The whole year is fertile. The great drawback is the want of moisture and rain. When the regular supply of water fails, nothing can prevent a sterile harvest. Malabar is however rarely, if ever, exposed to this calamity. In this respect it has the advantage of almost every other part of India. In Malabar the cultivation of rice may be seen at all seasons of the year, and at the same time in every stage of its progress. Nothing can be more rich and interesting than this picture. The appearance of the country is beautiful and various. At one view may be seen the operation of sowing or transplanting in one field: in another the plant shooting above the water, and elsewhere it is quite ripe.