96 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



the previous harvest, on which great part of their subsistence 

 for the year depends. The system of cultivation of all the 

 wild tribes of these provinces is much the same, and is, in 

 fact, almost identical with the method followed jby all the 

 unreclaimed aboriginal races throughout India. Though large 

 tracts of splendid level land lie untilled on the Puchmurree 

 plateau, and in the valleys below, the Korku has no cattle or 

 ploughs with which to break it up. He has nothing in the 

 way of implements but his axe. This is enough, however, 

 for his wants. He selects a hill side where there is a little 

 soil, and a plentiful growth of grass, timber, and bamboos. 

 He prefers a place where young straight teak poles grow 

 thick and strong, as they are easiest to cut, and produce 

 most ashes when burnt. He cuts every stick that stands on 

 the selected plot, except the largest trunks, which he lops 

 of their branches and girdles so that they may shortly die. 

 This he does early in the dry season (January to March), and 

 leaves the timber thickly piled on the ground to dry in the 

 torrid sun of the hot season. By the end of May it will be 

 just like tinder, and he then sets fire to it and burns it as 

 nearly as he can to ashes. With all his labor, however 

 (and he works hard at this spasmodic sort of toil), he will 

 not be able to work all the logs into position to get burnt ; 

 and at the end of a week he will rest from his labor, and con- 

 temp] ate with satisfaction the three or four acres of valuable 

 teak forest he has reduced to a heap of ashes, strewn with 

 the charred remains of the larger limbs and trunks. He 

 now rakes his ashes evenly over the field and waits for rain, 

 which in due season generally comes. He then takes a few 

 handfuls of the coarse grain he subsists on and flings them 

 into the ashes, broadcast if the ground be tolerably level, if 

 steep, then in a line at the top, so as to be washed down 



