68 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 



remainder, or at least half of the country, might probably 

 be formed into plantations or gardens. The plantations at 

 present rated in the public accompts are 19,048.' And 

 again : ' The hill land not occupied by these gardens is 

 commonly once in ten or twelve years cultivated after the 

 ponna fashion, as I have described at Tellichery. The 

 principal grain sown is the hill rice, on which the inhabi- 

 tants of the interior chiefly depend for a subsistence. 

 There are also sown some shamay (panicum miliare), ellu 

 (sesamum), and pyru (legumes) ; and with every crop raised 

 on this kind of ground some cotton seeds are mixed.' 



Marsden, in his History of Sumatra, tells that the inhabi- 

 tants of that island have no settled land for their tillage, 

 but cut down every year a part of the ancient forests of 

 the country, and ameliorate the soil by the ashes of the 

 trees which they burn upon it. ' I could never/ says he, 

 'behold this devastation without a strong sentiment of 

 regret. Perhaps the prejudices of a classical education 

 taught me to respect those aged trees as the habitation of 

 an order of sylvan deities, who were now deprived of 

 their sustenance. But, without having recourse to super- 

 stition, it is not difficult to account for such feelings at the 

 sight of a venerable wood, old as the soil it stood on, and 

 beautiful beyond what the pencil can describe, annihilated 

 for the mere temporary use of the space it occupies.' 



In Ceylon the same practice is followed. Sir James 

 Emmerson Tennant, in his interesting work on that 

 island, writes (vol. ii., p. 473) : 



' Drawing near to Batticoloa, large spaces in the forest, 

 of 200 and 300 acres, suddenly appeared, cleared of the 

 timber, and enclosed by rustic fences, with a few tem- 

 porary huts run up in the centre, and all the surrounding 

 area divided into patches of Indian corn, coracan ground, 

 and dry paddy ; with plots of esculents, and curry stuffs 

 of every variety onions, chillies, yams, cassava, and sweet 

 potatoes ; while cotton plants, more or less advanced to 



