clearing of jungle once in spring and once in autumn. The Khasis do
not manure their orange trees, nor do they dig about and expose the
roots. The price of orange plants is from 75 to 100 plants per rupee
for plants from 1 to 2 ft. in height, and from fifty to seventy-five
plants per rupee for plants from 2 to 5 ft. in height. Orange trees
bear fruit when from five to eight years old in ordinary soils. In
very fertile soils they sometimes bear after four years. A full-grown
tree yields annually as many as 1,000 oranges, but a larger number
is not unknown. The larger portion of the produce is exported from
the district to the plains, and to fruit markets at the foot of the
hills such as Theria, Mawdon, and Phali-Bazar, on the Shella river,
whence it finds its way to the Calcutta and Eastern Bengal markets.

Potatoes are raised on all classes of land, except _hali_, or wet paddy
land. When the land has been properly levelled and hoed, drains are
dug about the field. A cultivator (generally a female), with a basket
of seed potatoes on her back and with a small hoe in her right hand,
digs holes and with the left hand drops two seed-potatoes into each
hole. The holes are about 6 in. in diameter, 6 in. deep, and from
6 to 9 in. apart from one another. Another woman, with a load of
manure in a basket on her back, throws a little manure over the seed
in the hole, and then covers both up with earth. After the plants
have attained the height of about 6 in., they are earthed up. When
the leaves turn yellow, it is a sign that the potatoes are ripe. The
different kinds of sweet potatoes grown and the yam and another kind
of esculent root--_u sohphlang_ (_femingia vestita Benth_.) will be
noticed under the head of "Crops."

The Khasis possess very few agricultural sayings and proverbs, but
the following may be quoted as examples:--