154 AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS [FT. Ill 



blind to his own interests, and knows fairly well what will pay 

 him best with the least labour. He would like, in many 

 countries, to engage in chena or ladang cultivations, or failing 

 this to cultivate coconuts or other easily marketable crop. 

 Even this easy cultivation, however, he is liable to abandon if 

 he finds that he can make money more easily in other ways. 

 All this is perfectly natural, and a sound agricultural policy 

 must take account of it and utilise it to further the end in 

 view. 



Let the native be once convinced that there is a profit to 

 be made by the cultivation of any particular crop, if not too 

 troublesome or costly, and he will soon take it up ; witness the 

 large extent of land formerly occupied by coffee in the Malay 

 States and Ceylon, and that now in rubber in the same colonies. 



We may therefore say, let the native grow what he prefers, 

 and encourage him in this cultivation. He will in general 

 pick out coconuts, vegetables, and crops for which he has a 

 ready local market, and such crops as he sees the planting 

 enterprises near him engaged with, and for which he can obtain 

 a market upon the planting estates. 



A word in conclusion about chena. This is an exceedingly 

 vicious ^mode of cultivation, and wasteful and destructive beyond 

 measure. It should be put a stop to as soon as possible, at any 

 rate on lands owned by the Government, and experiments to 

 determine the best rotation of crops to practice upon the chena 

 in private hands should early be put into practice. There is 

 little doubt that the common contention of the natives, that 

 the land is too poor to stand continuous cropping, is untrue. 

 The real reason, in many cases, at any rate, is that in two years 

 it gets too weedy, and that it pays them better to chena a new 

 piece of land. 



