50 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



of the north. The very earliest stages of agriculture, if indeed 

 such a name may be given, may be seen to this day among the 

 remnant of the primitive Veddas of Ceylon and other dis- 

 appearing relics of an older type of mankind. Hunters in the 

 forest with the bow and arrow, these men live, so far as vege- 

 table products are concerned, simply upon the roots and fruits 

 of the wild forest plants, and neither till the ground nor grow 

 any actual crops. There can be little doubt that all mankind 

 began at this early stage but it is now only of historical 

 interest. Be it noted, in connection with the ideas we are now 

 following out, that the Vedda need not own the land, that he 

 requires no capital to live upon until his crop is ripe, that he 

 needs no means of transport, and that he can get on without 

 the assistance of any other labour than his own. 



The next stage in most countries of the tropics involves 

 the clearing of the forest to a greater or less degree ; only in 

 a few countries is there any open grass land, and as a matter 

 of fact such land is less suited to primitive agriculture than 

 the forest land. At first this clearing would undoubtedly 

 take the form of felling and burning the smaller trees, the fire 

 destroying also the larger trees and the undergrowth. This 

 method survives to the present in the widespread practice of 

 what is called in Ceylon chcna, in Malaya ladang^ in India 

 jhuming. A very large population to this day makes chena 

 part at least of its regular agriculture ; consequently im- 

 provement must begin very far back. 



The land having been chenaed, i.e. the forest felled and 

 burned, the crop, whatever it may be, is sown among the 

 ashes, and a good return is commonly obtained in the first 

 year. In the second year the return ,is less ; in the third 

 year the land is usually abandoned to jungle once more. After 

 a period of from ten to fifty years, varying with the soil and 

 the rainfall, a scrubby jungle has grown over the land which 

 is said by natives to be once more worth chena. It has 

 commonly been supposed that this means that the soil has 

 again recovered its fertility ; but this is only part, and probably 

 the least important part, of the truth. In actual fact, the growth 

 of shrubs and small trees has choked out most of the weeds 

 of open ground and given it an undergrowth of the weeds of 

 shady ground. These weeds, when the land is cleared, will 

 not grow any more, while the weeds of open ground, so long 



