Khira, or cucumbers, grow to great perfection, and with another cucurbitaceous plant called Kangkari, are ripe from the 13th of June to the 15th of August.
The garlic is planted about the 1st of January, and is taken up from the 12th of April to the 12th of June.
Bera, or the Solanum Melongena, is sown about the 1st of May, and is ripe about the 1st of October.
In the hilly parts of the country, the common potatoe
(Solanum tuberosum) has been introduced, and grows tolerably: but it does not thrive so well as at Patna, owing probably to a want of care.
The Sakarkandh (Convolvulus batatas) succeeds better. It is planted about the 1st of April, and is taken up from the middle of October to the middle of December.
Most of the European kitchen vegetables have been introduced: but they are only to be found in the gardens of men of distinction, and in very small quantities.
When Colonel Kirkpatrick visited the country, [230] the only kitchen vegetables (meaning, I presume, European) were cabbages and peas, both of which were of the worst kind. They had, he says, the Thibet turnip, but cannot raise it any more than the potatoe, without receiving the seed annually. This, compared with what I observed, indicates some degree of progressive improvement.
None of their fruits are good, except the oranges and pine apples; but both of these are in great perfection. The peach is every where wild, and is also reared in gardens: but it does not ripen till long after the rainy season has commenced, and is generally half rotten before it becomes soft. At Kathmandu the Plantain tree (Musa) dies to the ground in winter, but the roots are not killed, and in the spring send up fresh stems. Some good plantains come from Nayakot, and other valleys, that are situated lower than the capital is.
Such is the account I could procure of the cultivation in the plains of Nepal. On the sloping faces of the hills, bounding the smaller vallies in its vicinity, I observed another mode of cultivation. The soil there is not formed into terraces; but in April is pared and burned, and then is sown with Sama,