A Manual of the Tinnevelly District in the Presidency of Madras. E-book. Formato PDF Andrew John Stuart   -  Forgotten Books, 2017  - 

This great system for utilizing every available source of water supply, with its numerous stone anicuts across the rivers and streams, its channels and its tanks, is believed to have originated about the 15th century, and is to this day the main source of the wealth and prosperity of Tinnevelly. Progressively increasing care is, however, being bestowed on the cultivation of the dry lands. The extensive black cotton plains of North and north-east Tinnevelly are one sheet of cotton, cholum, gram, and other crops during the season, October to February, though black and bare the rest of the year.