In the lowlands to the south, the soil partakes of the character of the hills from whose detritus it is to a great extent formed. In it rice is the chief article produced, and for its cultivation the disintegrated laterite (_cabook_), when thoroughly irrigated, is sufficiently adapted. The seed time in the southern section of the island is dependent on the arrival of the rains in November and May, and hence the mountains and the maritime districts at their base enjoy two harvests in each year--the _Maha_, which is sown about July and August, and reaped in December and January, the _Yalla_ which is sown in spring, and reaped from the 15th of July to the 20th September. But owing to the different description of seed sown in particular localites, and the extent to which they are respectively affected by the rains, the times of sowing and harvest vary considerably on different sides of the island.[1]
[Footnote 1: The reaping of other descriptions of grain besides rice occurs at various periods of the year according to the locality.]
In the north, where the influence of the monsoons is felt with less force and regularity, and where, to counteract their uncertainty, the rain is collected in reservoirs, a wider discretion is left to the husbandman in the choice of season for his operations.[1] Two crops of grain, however, are the utmost that is taken from the land, and in many instances only one. The soil near the coast is light and sandy, but in the great central districts of Neuera-kalawa and the Wanny, there is found in the midst of the forests a dark vegetable mould, in which in former times rice was abundantly grown by the aid of those prodigious artificial works for irrigation which still form one of the wonders of the island. Many of the tanks, though partially in ruins, cover an area from ten to fifteen miles in circumference. They are now generally broken and decayed; the waters which would fertilise a province are allowed to waste themselves in the sands, and hundreds of square miles capable of furnishing food for all the inhabitants of Ceylon are abandoned to solitude and malaria, whilst rice for the support of the non-agricultural population is annually imported from the opposite coast of India.