330 SPICES 



CHAP. 



slow, is certainly less wasteful than burning them. In 

 some forests there would be too much of this under- 

 growth to be left on the ground even in piles, and 

 some would have to be removed in some way. The 

 system of leaving the weedings, branches, etc., just 

 pulled into heaps or lines if abundant, or left where 

 it falls if scanty, is the plan adopted in the cultivation 

 of gutta-percha, a shade-lover in the Malay peninsula, 

 and I have cultivated nutmegs, cloves, camphor, and 

 ramie in the same way. The ordinary planter, how- 

 ever, has a horror of seeing rubbish left on the ground, 

 and prefers an extensive and thorough conflagration, 

 which is, of course, impracticable where shade trees are 

 to be left. 



The Malabarese, according to White, recommend it 

 as an infallible sign of fertility if the large trees on 

 falling cause a trembling of the soil, and this he 

 accounts for by the fact that where the soil is of great 

 depth with a spongy mass of roots or fibres the shock 

 of a big tree falling will be felt, while where there are 

 strata of rocky or gravelly nature it would be less 

 readily noticed, and thus the trembling of the earth 

 shows that the soil is rich and deep. Ludlow, in 

 talking of the tradition among the Coorgs, says that 

 in olden times the people noticed that it only grew in 

 places where the ground had been shaken by the fall of 

 some large tree or of a large branch thrown down by 

 the force of the wind, especially when this had happened 

 a short time previous to the falling of the annual showers 

 in March and April. 



In imitation of this during the months of February 

 and March they selected in their jungles the largest 

 trees and felled them, previously cutting down all the 

 smaller surrounding trees and brushwood, which would 

 otherwise have lessened the shock given to the ground. 

 The mere clearing of the ground and letting in the light 

 would account for the springing up of the plants, if their 

 rhizomes and seeds were in the ground. Scitamineous 

 plants frequently appear in abundance on the felling of 



