APPENDIX A. 503 



Another grain, an inferior species of millet called ragi 

 {Eleusine coracana Gaertn.), is grown on many hill-sides by 

 a more or less nomad population, by which it is consumed in 

 preference to any other. 



This crop is grown by the shifting system of cultivation 

 known locally as kumri. A patch of forest is cut down, 

 the trees burnt, and the grain sown broadcast amongst 

 the ashes just before the monsoon rains are due. The 

 following year another patch is treated in a similar manner, 

 with the result that the hill-tops along the Western Ghats are 

 now bare and clearings in the forest are dotted about all over 

 the hills. The areas cleared and burnt are never allowed 

 to recover, as they are burnt annually to make grazing-grounds 

 for the village cattle. When they are situated on steep 

 hill-sides the wash of the torrential monsoon rains gradually 

 disintegrates the soil, carrying it into the valleys and down the 

 streams, leaving bare rock and stony ground incapable of 

 growing anything at all. In clearings situated on less steep 

 ground all that now remain are stunted trees of inferior species 

 unfit for timber, many of them badly charred and most of them 

 hacked about by cattle-boys, and growths such as dwarf 

 palms, large ferns and inferior species of grasses. Some of 

 the clearings are covered by species of gregarious Strobilanthes , 

 acanthaceous shrubby plants, the larger species of which 

 form impenetrable thickets amongst which grow stunted 

 trees of Terminalia chebula and Terminalia tomentosa (Com- 

 bretaceae), Olea dioica (Oleacese) and euphorbiaceous Glochidion, 

 shrubs of Wendlandia and small trees of Randia (Rubiaceae) 

 and others. In addition to all this damage the garden holders 

 in the damp valleys lop the forest trees for green manure 

 for their palms and spices, and have gradually also cleared 

 large areas of timber-growth to provide grazing for their 

 cattle. These grazing-grounds are also burnt annually in 

 the hot weather to give early grass, and have, by degrees, 

 become useless even for that purpose. And so the damage 

 goes on. 



On the coast all who can do so grow cocoanut-palms in their 

 village compounds ; a few have larger plantations of them, 

 so that there is a more or less continuous belt of these palms 

 from north to south. There are some strips of mangrove - 

 swamps along many of the creeks too, but none are of any 

 large extent, and the species of trees that grow in them are 

 chiefly Rhizophoracese. The few salt marsh-lands that exist 

 near the mouths of the rivers are characterized by such 

 species as Acanthus ilicifoliuslAm\.,& bush with large, mauve, 

 lipped flowers and holly-like, prickly leaves, and the verbena- 

 ceous Avicennia officinalis Linn. There are narrow belts of 

 sand along the sea upon which we get Clerodendron inerme 



