CH. VIIl] AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS IN PRIMITIVE TIMES 35 



the villager has perhaps owned his own laud, but has had to pay 

 a heavy tax to the chief of the district. A relic of such taxation 

 was kept up in Ceylon until about fifteen years ago, the villager 

 having to pay to the government 10% of the rice that he grew. 



Almost the only countries where agriculture was carried on 

 in any systematic way in early times were those inhabited by 

 the Indian races (India, Ceylon, etc.), where agriculture has 

 always been counted an honourable profession, and where the 

 cultivators were usually among the highest castes of all. It 

 appears also to have been of some importance in tropical 

 America (Mexico, Peru, etc.) prior to the advent of the 

 Spaniards. 



Partly perhaps in consequence of the unsettled nature of the 

 country, and the risk attaching to the cultivator who should 

 settle down in one place to cultivate any crops for a long period 

 of time, the system of chena or ladang cultivation briefly 

 described in the first chapter sprang up and became of much 

 importance, though of course it is obvious that the first clearings 

 in any forest-covered country must be of the nature of chena. 

 To this day, it is one of the standing minor grievances of the 

 eastern native against the British government that he is not 

 allowed free and unrestricted chena in the crown lands. The 

 fact that such practices are utterly destructive of the natural 

 capital of the country does not in any way appeal to him so 

 long as there is land left to chena he considers that he should 

 be allowed to chena it. In the more densely peopled districts 

 and countries the practice has gone out perforce, but in more 

 thinly peopled places it is extremely popular. 



The most common argument in favour of chena used by 

 natives of countries in which it goes on is that the land is so 

 poor that it will not allow of any other method of cultivation. 

 This is disproved by the fact that in places where chena used 

 formerly to be common, as for instance in the western province 

 of Ceylon, it has now gone out, and the land is continuously 

 cultivated, by the success of European planting enterprises in 

 chena countries, and by actual experiment, as at Maha- 

 iluppalama in Ceylon, where land in the midst of a chena 

 district has proved to be capable of continuous cultivation. 



32 



