158 TWENTY-FIRST REPORT. 



bined with such high cultural characteristics as a general knowledge of read- 

 ing and writing, in their peculiar character, we find almost as primitive an 

 agriculture as one can imagine. 



An Asahan plantation {ladang in Malay; djoema in the local dialect of 

 Batak) is a dealing in the jungle, made by felling and burning. The first 

 crop is always upland rice, which is planted in the soft, ashy ground, with no 

 previous preparation, such as plowing. In fact, there is no such thing as a 

 plow in Asahan, even on the great European plantations. The men and women 

 walk side by side across the ladang, punching shallow depressions in the soft 

 surface as they go, with long, blunt planting sticks. The children follow, and 

 drop a few grains of rice into each hole. The seeds are not covered by the 

 planters, but are left to be covered by the first rain. In the meantime, the 

 ladang must be watched from a little watch house, where someone is con- 

 stantly on guard, so as to drive away birds and animals. Scare-crows are 

 used, all of them often connected with the watch house by strings or rattan, 

 so that they can be kept in motion by the watchers. 



Since the land is not cultivated, it ceases to be productive for rice, after 

 a year or two. Then other plants are started, such as maize, red peppers, egg- 

 plant, onions, ginger, Caladium, tobacco, and many others. These herbaceous 

 types are inter.spersed with several kinds of bananas, manihot, pineapple, etc. 

 In former days cotton was planted, which in that climate is of course arbo- 

 rescent. A few remnants of it are still to be found in out-of-the-way places. 

 But regardless of what plants may be grown to prolong the utility of the 

 ladang, its ultimate fate is reversion to jungle, unless, through invasion by 

 taking, it becomes irredeemable for native agriculture. The native has 

 learned one way to turn the course of nature to his own advantage. He may 

 plant his ladang, before he deserts it, with sugar-palm. The hagat will hold 

 its own with any of the invaders which compose second growth jungle. It 

 grows rapidly, and in ten or fifteen years becomes a productive sugar grove, 

 and a source of considerable profit to its owner. It is interesting to note that 

 the seeds of the sugar-palm are planted by the women, in order that they may 

 be fruitful, — an example of sympathetic magic. Of course trees which occur 

 spontaneously are also utilized. Blatter (°) states that the species seems to 

 owe its wide distribution in Java to the fact that the corrosive fruit is eaten 

 by two mammals, Paradoxurus (the palm civet) and the wild hog, Sux ver- 

 rucosus. The same is doubtless true in Sumatra. Few animals are able to 

 eat the fruit, which is of so acrid a nature that decoctions of it are said to 

 have been used as a weapon by the natives in their early attempts to resist 

 European aggression. The liquid was called "hell-wator" by the Dutch. 



With regard to the production of juice, it is hard to improve upon the 

 statement in Logan's "Journal of the East Indian Archipelago," which has 

 been quoted by several subsequent writers. (") "Like the cocoa-nut tree, the 

 Gomuti I'alm [Arenga saccharifera) comes into bearing after the seventh 



