DRY GRAINS, FRUITS, VEGETABLES. 93

In the Northern Province there is one kind of rice,
i perunella,” which takes as long as six months to mature,
all other varieties from that part of the Island maturing in
from three to five and a half months. The local selling
price of paddy varies considerably in different seasons,
according to abundance or poverty of yield as well as the
means of transport to other markets. Attimes it will sell at
less than a rupee a bushel, at other times at one rupee and
a half to two rupees the bushel. One bushel of paddy
(i.e., rice in the husk) yields half that bulk of cleaned rice.
The present yield is probably about 8,500,000 bushels of
rice, being about fifteen-fold on the quantity sown. The
imported rice amounts to some 8.000,000 bushels, costing
over $5.000,000.

Fine or Dry Grains.
These terms are used for the small cereals and pulses
which can be grown on unirrigated land. They are but
little grown where there is plenty of rice land and water
available, but are largely cultivated in outlying districts,
sspecially on chenas (page 71). Their value as food is lower
than that of rice, but they are easy to grow and yield a
large return on newly chenagd land.
The most commonly cultivated kinds are kurakkan (£lewsine
 Coracana), amu (Paspalum scrobiculatum), meneri or
millet (Panicum miliare and P. milincewm), tana-hal or
Italian millet (Setaria italica), kumba or bulrush millet
(Pennisetum typhoideum), muneta, in its two varieties, green
and black gram (Phaseolus Max), and kollu (Dolichos
biflorus). A hill paddy is also frequently grown af
slevations higher than that at which the ordinary rice will
grow. Maize or Indian corn (Zea Mais) is grown in small
quantities, usually mixed with other dry grains, but has
never become a favourite food of the natives,

Flours.

Flours are made from a number of the cereals above
mentioned, and also from the fruit of the plantain or banana,
and from the pith of several palms, &amp;c. ; there is at present,
however. no trade in anv of these articles.

Vegetables and Fruit.
As mentioned above, a very large area is occupied by
fruit trees and various kinds of vegetables, cultivated in a
haphazard way round native houses throughout the Island.
Systematic garden or orchard cultivation for market, on the: