of the Malabar Cardamom. | 239 
other. Much more diminutive plots are also cultivated by a race 
of Hill People called Kourchara and Cadera, who are not exactly 
slaves, but locally attached, and acknowledging certain obliga- 
tions of a feudal and perhaps reciprocal kind to the Nairs in the 
neighbourhood. ‘They are, of course, permitted to reap the pro- 
duce of their separate industry, without the participation of these 
superiors. 
After the operations now described, no further labour is be- 
stowed for four years. At the revolution of the fourth rainy sea- 
son, and towards its close, they look for a crop, and their hopes 
are rarely disappointed: this first effort of nature is generally 
scanty ; for instance, only one-half of what is reaped the follow- 
ing year, and only one-fourth of what is yielded after the sixth 
rains, at which period the plant has reached its acme of prolific 
vigour. Now and then, however, this routine is interrupted, 
and its progress protracted, by causes of which they are not very 
solicitous to investigate the nature: they remark, however, ex- 
cessive and uninterrupted rains to be one source of failure. 
In the dry season succeeding to the first crop, they grub up. 
the undergrowth of shrubs, and clear away the weeds and grass, 
laying them up, as before, in heaps to rot; for in no casedo they | 
set fire to these, the consequence of which practice would be the 
certain failure of the crops. ‘This agrees with the most approved 
ideas of agriculture even in Europe, where the most substantial 
and copious manures are produced from the mouldering piles of 
weeds, and vegetable offals of every description. 
'This process of cleaning being yearly repeated, the same spot 
will continue productive for 50 years and upwards. My in- 
formers would not specify any term or number ; they said that it 
exceeded their habits of computation, and the memory of any 
one generation's Another opinion similarly founded is, that the 
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