72 NOTES ON THE SIAMESE PROVINCES OF K'OOWI, &C. 



barking deer and the black leopard abound on it, with a few 

 wild buffaloes. But there is not a human habitation upon 

 it, notwithstanding the abundant pasture, for the Siamese keep 

 cattle only as a means of transport and labour. 



Old Paddy Fields. 



With the exception of the grass country of Pateeo all the 

 other open spaces in the jungle, which although numerous 

 seldom exceed forty acres in extent, are old paddy-fields 

 cleared at one time for cultivation by man. When a piece of 

 jungle has been cleared for hill-paddy and the crop reaped 

 and carried away, the old tree stumps sprout, young saplings 

 spring up, and the jungle soon regains its own ; but in the low- 

 lying level alluvial ground prepared for ' wet ' paddy, and 

 which is usually put under a course of crops, thick grass 

 springs up, and being set on fire every dry season drives the 

 jungle quite as far back as it is able to regain during the 

 rains, so that it becomes a permanent opening in the jungle. 



The Rice Crop. 



Although small patches of tobacco are grown, and one may 

 see cotton trees, plantains, coco-nut and betel-nut palms in 

 gardens surrounding the houses, yet rice is by far the chief 

 crop of those four provinces. The rice-fields lie upon the 

 flat, alluvial soil surrounding the villages, which are invariably 

 situated upon the banks of a stream towards its mouth. In 

 the end of July, low earthen walls are thrown up, dividing this 

 land into plots containing about one square rood, and the soil 

 turned over by means of a rude wooden plough. As soon as 

 rain falls buffaloes are turned out to trample and soften the 

 soil and to further prepare it for sowing, they are yoked to a 

 log of wood set with wooden teeth and the ground thus har- 

 rowed. A small seed bed is prepared, and rice sown extreme- 

 ly thickly, and when the crowded plants have got their heads 

 some six inches above the ground they are transplanted and 

 set one by one some eight inches apart in the plots already 

 prepared by ploughing and harrowing. By the end of Nov- 

 ember, the crop is ripe, the heads are cut and gathered by 



