324 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



most numerous, and therefore there are many who till land for 

 a share of the produce. 



Land that is too sterile for profitable cultivation or for taxa- 

 tion sells for from six to sixty dollars an acre, while good farm- 

 land is valued at from three hundred to eight hundred dollars an 

 acre. Rice-fields not in the vicinage of a city sell readily for six 

 hundred dollars an acre, and are not always to be bought at that 

 price, because those who own land find it the safest investment, 

 and part with it only when under the stress of debt. The burst- 

 ing of dikes, drought, and bad habits are the chief causes of the 

 transfer of land, and the sale of a child often precedes that of the 

 rice-field. Interest on money lent is from twelve to twenty per 

 cent, according to agreement between lender and borrower. 



The chief expense of tillage is in fertilizers, beans and sesa- 

 mum-seeds from which the oil has been expressed being commonly 

 used, at an outlay of from six to forty and an average of twenty- 

 four dollars upon every acre of land. Besides this, potato-peel- 

 ings, hair from shaven heads, and all other vegetable and animal 

 refuse is carefully husbanded and methodically applied to the soil. 

 The clods of the field are laid up into little ovens to retain and 

 be enriched by the smoke of the stubble burned underneath them. 

 Adobe houses, whose walls have for many years absorbed the 

 fumes of a kitchen and the exhalations of human inmates, are 

 pulverized and added to the ever-hungry earth. Each growing 

 plant separately receives distinguished consideration, a scrap of 

 tobacco-stalk being sometimes put beside its root to destroy under- 

 ground grubs, while its leaves are frequently examined and sedu- 

 lously freed from vermin. The rotation of crops is always prac- 

 ticed. 



As no milk, butter, or cheese is used, the only quadruped seen 

 on the farms is the water-buffalo, or the zebu, which assists in 

 plowing and harrowing. Many farmers rear ducks, which are 

 taken to the fields to devour the snails, crabs, and young frogs 

 which thrive there at planting-time. Fowls often accompany the 

 harvesters, picking up the last grains left among the stubble. 



Few families are without the ubiquitous black hog, whose 

 usual habitat is the door-step. Its food is the bran of the rice 

 hulled and eaten in the house ; its head is the chief offering set 

 before the lares and penates, and its flesh is most highly esteemed 

 among festive viands. It is reared at small expense, makes no 

 disputed demand on space, furnishes the unctuous element in a 

 satisfying bill of fare, and can always be sold at ten cents a 

 pound. 



The farming appliances are simple, and a complete outfit can 

 be bought for forty dollars. A plow with two shares, a pair of 

 harrows, and a f anning-mill each cost two dollars ; a pump worked 



