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clearings and merely top the trees and lop the branches, so that the 

 trees are enabled to recuperate quickly when the area is again 

 allowed to revert to bush. An extreme case of destruction is that 

 of the chitemene system employed in the cultivation of finger millet 

 in Northern Rhodesia and the southern parts of Tanganyika. 

 This is described by Clements (1933), Trapnell and Clothier 

 (1937), and Moffat (1933), who has given a detailed account of 

 the practice in the extreme north-east of Northern Rhodesia, where 

 its evil effects are most evident. The chitemene {or fitemene) system 

 consists in the burning of timber and brushwood from a wide 

 area of land on one small part of it, so that the beneficial results 

 of wood ash and sterilization of the soil are concentrated. The 

 ratio of timber-area cut to area of cultivated land may vary up 

 to 10:1, and the time required for regeneration of the pollarded 

 trees may be anything from ten to thirty-five years. Sometimes 

 the whole trees are burnt on the ground after being felled, or 

 they may be killed by ring-barking and subsequently burnt stand- 

 ing. Trapnell and Clothier (1937) in describing the agricultural 

 system of the Northern Plateau, give various forms of a modified 

 chitemene system, which are employed partly owing to differences 

 in agricultural traditions and partly to suit the varying local con- 

 ditions. They conclude that although the practice may be held 

 to improve poor soils, yet dependence on ash fertilizing causes 

 gardens to be placed on soils of low fertility, with a view to obtain- 

 ing suitably sized fuel. Professor Ogilvie (1934) discusses some of 

 these practices in his communication on the results of inquiries 

 made by the British Association committee on human geography. 

 The destruction of forest growth in closed forest areas is un- 

 doubtedly very serious, but some authorities consider that in open 

 woodland the results are not so harmful as is sometimes suggested. 

 The woodland is economically useless for the most part, except 

 for certain species of trees which should be protected, and as 

 regards erosion the stumps and roots may regenerate rapidly, so 

 that the destruction of grass may be more important than that of 

 trees. In some areas, through long occupation and the consequent 

 distance of firewood from the villages, the roots are dug up and 

 burnt, but this only occurs in well-occupied cultivation steppe, 

 and not in the woodlands. 



