70 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 
cultivation of a cocoa-nut garden, or an ancestrial paddy 
farm—numbers of the population find the means of support. 
It likewise suits the fancy of those who feel repugnant to 
labour for hire, but begrudge no toil upon any spot of 
earth that they can call their own; when they can choose 
their own hours for work, and follow their own impulse 
for rest and idleness, it is impossible to deny that this 
system tends to encourage the natives in their predeliction 
for a restless and unsettled life,and that it therefore militates 
against them attaching themselves to fixed pursuits,through 
which the interests of the whole community would eventu- 
ally be advanced. It likewise leads to-the destruction of 
large tracts of forest land, which, after conversion to Chena, 
are unprofitable for a long series of years; but, on the 
other hand, it is equally evident that the custom tends 
materially to augment the food of the country (especially 
during periods of drought), to sustain the wages of labour, 
and to prevent an undue rise in the market value of 
the first necessaries of life. Regarding it in this light, 
and looking to the prodigious extent of forest land in the 
island, of which the Chena cultivation affects only a minute 
and unsaleable portion, it is a prevalent and plausable 
supposition, in which, however, [ am little disposed to 
acquiesce, that the advantages are sufficient to counteract 
the disadvantages of the system.’ 
In a number of Zhe Cornhill Magazine issued lately 
(March 1883), is a graphic detailed account of the practice 
as followed by the hill tribes of Burmah. But it is a 
practice by no means confined to Asia. In South Africa 
something of the kind may be seen. Thus do Bechuanas 
in some districts prepare virgin soil for culture. Thus do 
the Boors burn down the Rhenoster bush, herbs, and 
arborescent shrubs growing on the ground, as a prelimi- 
nary step towards bringing it under cultivation, converting 
it from veld into land. And in the vicinity of Uitenhage 
I have seen a portion of primeval forest cultivated in true 
Koomaree style by Kaffirs, with the consent of the pro- 
