Edible* Products. 



302 



[October, 1910. 



cutchi Acacia catechuoides). The standard 

 number of teeth used at the start is 3, 

 if the ground is hard. It is increased 

 during the following days to 5 or 7, the 

 intervals between each tooth being 

 reduced by degrees, as the clods of earth 

 encountered at first are broken up in the 

 course of the operation. These teeth do 

 not penetrate to the depth a plough 

 would do ; but, for all purposes, the 

 instrument seems suitable for this kind 

 of cultivation : it has, at least, the great 

 advantage of being easily replaced on the 

 spot; it costs little, and the Barman 

 will have no other. 



The ploughing and harrowing: over, 

 the cultivator sows his seed broadcast — 

 from 20 to 40 lbs. to the acre. He then 

 covers up the furrows by passing over 

 them, once or twice, the htundon or head 

 piece of the htun, from which all teeth 

 have been previously removed. With 

 favourable rain, the crop soon springs 

 up ; the average height of a fully matur- 

 ed crop is about 8 feet, and if all goes 

 well, is ready to be harvested by 

 the middle of January. An acre of 

 land sown with pyaung returns, on the 

 average, 560 lbs. of grain, plus the dried 

 stalks and leaves, which are stoied up 

 as fodder for the cultivator's plough 

 cattle, when grass has become scarce. 

 Several forms of pyaung are often grown 

 at the same time by the same cultivator, 

 but no difference whatever is made 

 in the method of cultivation. The one 

 most commonly grown is the ordinary 

 pyaung with deep orange coloured pani- 

 cles (Andropogan sorghum or Sorghum 

 vulgare). Another common form with a 

 fine golden grain, the Shway-iva (Sor- 

 ghum saccharatum,) found sometimes 

 with reflexed panicles, is also called 

 Chinese sugarcane or simply sugarcane 

 (Bur. kyan) because of its sweet juicy 

 stalks, resembling, with their nodes, the 

 real sugarcane: the grain feeds the people, 

 while the stalks form an excellent fodder 

 much relished by the cattle ; but very 

 often this name kyan is given to any 

 form of Sorghum. The reflexed panicle 

 may also be found here and there on 

 sorghums belonging to other forms. 

 This reflexion of the panicle does not 

 constitute a special variation or form 

 of pyaung. Then comes the pyaung- 

 kun-pyu with a pale whitish hairy grain, 

 also called myet khongyi an inferior 

 variation of Sorghum vulgare. A variety 

 with a black seed, termed locally 

 pyaung net or naga cheik (Sorghum 

 niger) named also sometimes pyaung 

 hzee by a few — is put down sometimes 

 in small patches here and there. The 

 cooked grain, said to be difficult to 

 digest, is more starchy and more sticky 



than the other kinds, and is used mostly 

 for making cakes and other dainties. 

 Another pyaung, with a milky white 

 grain, Sorghum halepense, the hsan- 

 byaung, is also grown in certain local- 

 ities. The grain when boiled approaches 

 cooked rice in colour and in taste; and, 

 for this reason, has been named " hsan- 

 byaung, v " rice-pyaung" It is con- 

 sumed by the more wealthy classes. 

 The stalks being hard and ligneous, are 

 not given to cattle ; the surplus stock, 

 bought by local firms, is exported to 

 Rangoon where it is ground into flour 

 as a substitute for wheat. 



Pyaung is a very precarious crop. 

 The first cause of its ruin, followed 

 always by disastrous results, is drought, 

 or the failure of the season showers. In 

 years of scanty or untimely rainfall, 

 when the crop has failed totally, the 

 cultivator of the dry zone, who lives 

 from hand to mouth, is compelled as a 

 last resource to part with his best 

 plough cattle, and to leave his village. 

 He sells his cattle at the nearest town 

 or -cattle-market, packs his few belong- 

 ings in a basket or two slung to a pole 

 over his shoulder, and turns his face 

 towards the lower districts in search of 

 work. This emigration, when general 

 throughout a certain tract, is the sure 

 sign of a scarcity or of a famine. If the 

 drought threatens to be a severe and 

 prolonged one, necessitating an abseuce 

 of several months, the whole family 

 abandons the place, travelling on foot 

 to the nearest lower district. Those who 

 own a large number of cattle drive them 

 down with them, selling them on the 

 way. 



Besides drought in years of scanty 

 rainfall, and floods in years of excessive 

 rain, like all other valuable crops, 

 pyaung has a long list of enemies, — in- 

 sects, fungi, and weeds. It is among 

 the latter that the two most common, 

 Striga lutea and Convolvulus arvensis, 

 are found in Upper Burma. In fact, 

 they can be discovered almost in every 

 village at certain seasons, and their 

 appearauce iu the fields causes awe and 

 despair to the unfortunate cultivator. 



Striga lutea, the pioinbyu of the Bur- 

 man agriculturist, an annual of the order 

 of Scrophulariacese, makes its appear- 

 ance at the end of August or early 

 in September with the middle rains. 

 This appearance among the grass in 

 the yas or fields is signalled by its small 

 white corolla of a peculiar shape, and 

 from which it derives its name in Bur- 

 mese of pwinbyu, the " white flower." 

 At that time, or very soon after, the 

 pyaung crop is sown in the uplan ds, and 

 this pwinbyu grows with it. When the 



