68 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 
remainder, or at least half of ‘the country, might probably 
be formed into plantations or gardens. The plantations at 
present rated in the public accompts are 19;048” And 
again: ‘The hiJl land not occupied by these gardens is 
commonly once in ten or twelve years cultivated after the 
ponna fashion, as I have described at Tellichery. The 
principal grain sown is the hill rice, on which the inhabi- 
tants of the interior chiefly depend for a subsistence. 
There are also sown some shamay (panicum miliare), ellu 
(sesamum), and pyru (legumes) ; and with every crop raised 
on this kind of ground some cotton seeds.are mixed,’ 
Marsden, in his History of Sumatra, tells that the inhabi- 
tants of that island have no settled land for their tillage, 
but cut down every year a part of the ancient forests of 
the country, and ameliorate the soil by the ashes of the 
trees which they burn upon it. ‘I could never, says he, 
‘behold this devastation without a strong sentiment of 
regret. Perhaps the prejudices of a classical. education 
taught me to respect those aged trees as the habitation of 
an order of sylvan deities, who were now deprived of 
their sustenance. But, without having recourse to super- 
stition, it is not difficult to account for such feelings at the 
sight of a venerable wood, old as the soil it stood on, and 
beautiful beyond what the pencil can describe, annihilated 
for the mere temporary use of the space it occupies.’ 
__ In Ceylon the same practice is followed. Sir James 
‘Emmerson Tennant, in his interesting work on that 
island, writes (vol. ii., p. 473) :— 
‘Drawing near to Batticoloa, large spaces in the forest, 
of 200 and 300 acres, suddenly appeared, cleared of the 
timber, and enclosed by rustic fences, with a few tem- 
porary huts run up in the centre, and all the surrounding 
area divided into patches of Tndian corn, coracan ground, 
and dry paddy; with plots of esculents, and curry stuffs 
of every variety—onions, chillies, yams, cassava, and. sweet 
potatoes; while cotton plants, more or less advanced to 
