October, 1910.] 



808 



Edible Products 



crop is about a month or two old, the 

 weed has already managed to entangle 

 and to entwine firmly its innumerable 

 rootlets among those of its victims, 

 and has began stealthily its work of 

 destruction underground and unseen, 

 The young green shoots of the pyaung, 

 healthy and promising a short time ago, 

 begin to fade slowly ; to wither and to 

 die. The author of the mischief is not 

 detected readily by an inexperienced eye. 

 It is so small and shelters itself always 

 so well under the shady leaves of the 

 pyaung plants, or among the grass and 

 other undergrowth in the fields, that it 

 is passed unnoticed at first. But if 

 with a little patience and care, one digs 

 the earth deep enough around the 

 affected plant, removing it entire, — 

 not pulling and uprooting with ajirk, 

 as the tender roots would thus be snap- 

 ped off and left buried in the ground 

 with the weed attached to them ; — if 

 then, one takes up the whole plant with 

 the clod of earth still adhering to it, and 

 one stands it for a few hours in a pail of 

 water, so that the earth attached to the 

 rootlets is completely separated, the real 

 enemy is at once revealed; this small 

 and apparently harmless weed with its 

 little white flower, quite unnoticed and 

 unsuspected before, the terrible pioin- 

 byu. The scrofulous looking roots are 

 found entangled with the tender smooth 

 rootlets of the pyaung plant, adhering 

 intimately to them in several places 

 with tiny suckers through which the 

 former tap the life and the sap of their 

 doomed victim. This is found to be the 

 case in years of drought especially, when 

 entire fields are completely destroyed 

 by the pest, which, by this means, 

 supplements to its own benefit the 

 deficiency in moisture and nutriment of 

 the sub-soil below. In years of suffi- 

 cient or fair rainfall, if a whole crop of 

 pyaung is not entirely ruined, the out- 

 turn of it, at least, is considerably 

 affected both in the quality as well as 

 in the quantity of the grain yielded. 



The pwinbyu is said wrongly to have 

 been unkuown as a pest twenty-five 

 years ago, before the annexation of 

 Upper Burma, and I have heard old men, 

 considered more or less as " wise men " 

 in their own little villages, sadly remark 

 that this was one of the many evils that 

 had befallen the country, and the agri- 

 culturist class especially, since the fall 

 of the pious King Thibaw, and his trans- 



Eortation out of Burma. The greatest 

 indrance to the improvement of agri- 

 culture in Upper Burma and his brother 

 villagers' very worst enemy by his 

 conservatism and his apathy, is assuredly 

 by this type of wiseacre met in every 

 amall village. 



One day when I had induced— or 

 rather believed I had induced— some 

 very obstinate and ignorant cultivators 

 to try new and more paying crops,— the 

 groundnut for instance,— for which I 

 had offered to obtain seed for them free, 

 I overheard one of these village "wise 

 men " who happened to be passing by, 

 grumble sulkily, as if to himself, that 

 " such seed issued free and so liberally 

 could not possibly be good seed: With 

 it germs of new pests and of new weeds 

 would surely be introduced into the 

 country. Had not the pwinbyu already 

 beeu imported from the kala (foreign) 

 country in a similar manner twenty-five 

 years ago? But, besides destructive 

 weeds aud pests, increase in taxes and 

 revenue rates would invariably follow 

 iu the near future," The next morning 

 the whole village came in a body to 

 cancel their indents made cheerfully 

 enough the evening before : 



" Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes I " 



The appearance of the piviribyri in 

 Upper Burma is certainly not as recent 

 as the annexation, as certain cultivators 

 and many others will have it. It is to 

 be found in India, as well as in Burma, 

 and is common throughout the eastern 

 tropics (Records of the Botanical Survey 

 of India, Volume III., No. 1 of 1904. The 

 Vegetation of the Minbu District in 

 Upper Burma, by A. T. Gage, Captain, 

 I. M.S., page 85). The succession of 

 several years of drought that an for- 

 tunately followed the annexation of 

 Upper Burma has very likely made the 

 ravages of this weed more noticeable 

 and more felt than in good seasons and 

 years of plenty. It is evident that in 

 times cf scanty rainfall, when the 

 pyaung crop is weak and unhealthy, 

 the pyaung must have a very destruc- 

 tive aud fatal influence on the former, 

 and must attach itself to the tender root- 

 lets of the young plants in a more deadly 

 grip than at other times, when rain 

 is sufficient and there is abundance 

 of moisture in the ground. Personal 

 observations have confirmed this, and 1 

 am glad to be able to note that those 

 same "wise men," mentioned above, 

 after some discussion, have been forced 

 later on to recognise and to admit this 

 fact, which many of their neighbours, 

 and, no doubt, they themselves, had 

 stolidly observed without even making 

 an effort to get at the true cause. A 

 proof that the pwinbyu was well known 

 in Upper Burma before the annexation 

 is that a large village in the Minbu 

 district where pyaung was cultivated as 

 a dry crop up to a few years ago, is 

 called after the name of the weed. This 



