By far the greater part of the rice ground, and that the lowest and the best, is of the kind which produces the crop of rice called Puya. The kinds of rice which are cultivated in this crop are very numerous, and it would be tedious to mention their names, as I have no observations to make on any one in particular. The fields which produce this crop must be perfectly level, as they are inundated during the greater part of the process of cultivation. Therefore, as the plain is by no means even, it has been divided into terraces. So much pains has been bestowed on this part of agriculture, that on the steep descents leading down to the rivers, there have been formed many terraces not above two feet wide. The numerous springs and rivulets that issue from the surrounding hills have been conducted with great pains to irrigate these terraces, and have been managed with considerable skill.
The cultivation of the Puya crop commences between the 13th of May and 12th of June, during which the field is hoed two or three times, and manured with dung, if any can be procured. At any rate, it is always manured with the kind of earth called Koncha, which I have already described. The banks that confine the water are then repaired; and about the 12th of June, when, either by the rain or by the irrigation from aqueducts, the fields have been inundated, and the soil has been by the hoe reduced to mud, the seedlings which have been raised in plots sown very thick, are transplanted by the women. The men perform all the other parts of the labour. This is a time of festivity as well as of hard work; and the people are then allowed a great freedom of speech, to which they are encouraged by large quantities of intoxicating liquors, in a share of which even the women indulge. The transplanting ought to commence from the 12th to the 15th of June, and ought to be finished by the Amavasya of Asharh, but this is a moveable feast. On the Krishna Chaturdasi, which happens on the day preceding the Amavasya, the Maha Rani or Queen, with her slave girls, (Ketis,) transplant a small plot within the palace, and it is reckoned an unlucky circumstance when this is not the last planted field in the valley.. The fields are always kept under water, and weeds are not troublesome. The few that spring up are removed by the spud. This crop begins to ripen about the 15th of October, and by the 1st of November the harvest is completed, after which a considerable portion of the land is cultivated for wheat or other winter crops.