CHAPTER XIV 



MIXED GARDEN CULTIVATION BY TROPICAL 

 NATIVES 



As already mentioned, this is perhaps the most common 

 form of "cultivation" among the poorer villagers in the tropics. 

 Though the yield in general is extremely poor, the mixture of 

 plants gives one at least of the advantages of rotation of crops, 

 the comparatively slow exhaustion of the soil, owing to the 

 fact that the various crops take different proportions of the 

 different elements of the food supply from the soil, and conse- 

 quently the latter tends to become exhausted at a much slower 

 rate, if at all. In this way, therefore, the villager can grow the 

 old familiar crops on the same land for an almost indefinite 

 period, and this alone makes a great appeal to the man without 

 any capital, for if his crops were to give out, he could not afford 

 to bring a new piece of land (even supposing that he had such 

 a piece) into cultivation, and wait several years for any return. 

 The majority of tropical crops are not annuals. 



No cultivation, in the proper sense of the word, is carried 

 on in these mixed gardens, but trees, shrubs, and herbs of many 

 kinds are simply allowed to grow together in the most casual 

 intermixture, and the ground between them is never turned 

 over, but is allowed to grow up in turf, upon which a few 

 miserable cattle are put out to graze. The typical mixed 

 garden of Ceylon may be seen in Plates I, Ilia, and Xa. 



In the wetter southern parts of Ceylon, in Java, in much 

 of India, and in the West Indies, this system or want of 

 system may be seen in full development. The principal trees 

 in southern Ceylon are the jak, the mango, the areca, the kitul, 

 the coconut, the candlenut, the shrubs oranges, limes, papaws, 

 pomegranates, plantains, etc., the herbs, yams, pepper, brinjai 



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