PRIMITIVE TREATMENT OF FORESTS. 6& 



maturity, are scattered throughout the whole space which 

 had been brought into cultivation. 



' The process of Chena cultivation, in this province, is 

 uniform and simple. The forest being felled, burned, 

 cleared, and fenced, each individual share is distinguished 

 by marks, huts are erected for the several families, and 

 in September the land is planted with Indian corn and 

 pumpkins ; melon seeds are sown, and cassava plants are 

 put down round the enclosure. In December the Indian 

 corn is pulled in the cob, and carried to market ; and the 

 ground is resown with millet, and other kinds of grain, 

 chillies, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, hemp, yams, and other 

 vegetables, over which an unwearied watch is kept up till 

 March and April, when all is gathered and carried off. 

 But as the cotton plants, which are put in at the same 

 time with the small grain, and other articles that form 

 the second crop after the Indian corn has been pulled, 

 require two years to come to maturity, one party is left 

 behind to tend and gather, whilst their companions move 

 forward into the forest to commence the process of felling 

 the trees, and forming another Chena farm. 



'The Chena cultivation lasts for but two years in any one 

 locality. It is undertaken by a company of speculators 

 under a licence from the government agent of the district, 

 and a single crop of grain having been secured, and suffi- 

 cient time allowed for the ripening and collecting of the 

 cotton, the whole enclosure is abandoned, and permitted to 

 return to jungle, the adventurers moving onward to clear 

 a fresh Chena elsewhere, and take a crop off some other 

 enclosure, to be in turn abandoned like the first : as in 

 this province no Chena is considered worth the labour of a 

 second cultivation until after an interval of fifteen years 

 from the first harvest. 



' During the period of cultivation great multitudes resort 

 to the forests, comfortable huts are built, poultry is reared, 

 thread spun, and chatties and other earthenware vessels 

 are made and fired ; and by this primitive mode of life 

 which has attractions much superior to the monotonous 



