Chap. XXVI. KUMARI. 451 



prohibited in Coorg and Mysore, while in Canara it is not 

 now allowed witliin nine miles of the sea, or three of any 

 navigable river, or in any of the Government forests without 

 previous permission. But in Malabar, where all the forests 

 are private property, the Government is unable to interfere 

 in the matter, and kumari is quite unrestricted. 



Kumari is cultivation carried on in forest-clearings. A 

 space is cleared on a hill-slope at the end of the year ; the 

 wood is left to dry until March or April, and then burnt. 

 The seed, generally raggee {Eleusine coracana), is sown in the 

 ashes on the fall of the first rain, the ground not being 

 touched with any implement, but merely weeded and fenced. 

 The produce is reaped at the end of the year, and is said to 

 be worth double that which could be procured under ordinary 

 modes of cultivation. A small crop is taken in the second, 

 and perhaps in the third year, and the sjDot is then deserted 

 and allowed to grow up with jungle. The same spot is 

 cultivated again after 10 or 12 years in Malabar, but in 

 North Canara the wild hill tribes generally clear patches 

 in the virgin forest. Dr. Cleghorn reports that 'kumari 

 renders the land unfit for coffee-cultivation, destroys valuable 

 timber, and makes the locality imhealthy, dense undei-^'^ood 

 being substituted in the abandoned clearings for tall trees 

 under which the air circulated freely.^ The Kurumbers and 

 Irulas, wild tribes of the Neilgherries, also raise small crops 

 by burning patches of jungle and scattering seeds over the 

 ashes. This system, which sounds so wasteful and is so 

 injurious to the yield of timber in the forests, is exceedingly 

 profitable to the cultivator, who has no expenses beyond the 

 payment of land-tax, which in these wild unfrequented 

 spots is often evaded. A common profit is 18 to 28 Rs. 

 an acre. 



2 Cleghorn's Forests and Gardens of I official correspondence rcBpecting 

 South India, pp. 120-44, where the | kumari will be found. 



2 G 2 



