PRIMITIVE TREATMENT OF FORESTS. 69 
maturity, are scattered throughout the whole space which 
had been brought into cultivation. 
‘The. process of Chena cultivation, in this province, is 
uniform and simple: The forest being felled, burned,’ 
cleared, and fenced, each individual share is distinguished 
by marks, huts are erected for the several families, and: 
in September the land is planted with Indian corn and: 
pumpkins; melon seeds are sown, and cassava plants are 
put down round: the enclosure. In December the Indian 
corn is pulled in. the cob, and carried to market; and the 
aoe is resown with millet, and other kinds of grain, 
chillies, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, hemp; yams, and other. 
vegetables; over which an unwearied watch is kept up till’ 
March and April, when all is gathered: and’ carried off. 
But as the cotton plants, which are put in at the same 
time with the small grain, and other articles that form 
the seeondi crop after the Indian corn has been pulled, 
require two years to come to maturity, one party is left 
behind to tend and gather, whilst their companions move 
forward into the forest to: commence the process of felling 
the trees, and forming: another Chena farm: 
‘The Chena cultivation lasts for but two years in any one 
loeality. It is undertaken by a company of speculators 
under a licence from the government agent of the district, 
and a single crop of grain having: been secured, and suffi- 
cient time allowed for the ripening and collecting of the 
cotton, the whole enclosure is abandoned, and permitted: to 
return to jungle, the adventurers moving onward to clear 
a fresh Chena elsewhere, and take a-crop-off some other - 
enclosure, to be in turn abandoned like the first: as in 
this province no Chena is considered worth the labour of a 
second: cultivation until after an interval of fifteen years 
from the first harvest. 
‘During the period of cultivation great multitudes resort 
to the forests, comfortable huts are built, poultry is: reared, 
thread spun, and chatties and other earthenware vessels 
are made and fired; and by this primitive mode-of life— 
which has attractions much superior to the monotonous 
