October, 1910.] 



Miscellaneous. 



continuous crops, but the great expense 

 has been in weeding, and only after 

 some years has this begun to diminish. 



While the few remaining primitive 

 Veddas in Ceylon live entirely upon roots 

 and fruits, the more civilised ones, who 

 * have mixed to some extent with their 

 Sinhalese neighbours, also cultivate a 

 few small chenas, and consume the pro- 

 duce of these ; and there are many other 

 remnants of primitive races scattered 

 about the world who are in the same 

 stage of agricultural progress. 



The next stage beyond the eating of 

 wild forest produce and the cultivation 

 of a few unimportant chenas, is the 

 abandonment of the first named, and a 

 systematic cultivation of chenas, so that 

 one at any rate should be going on 

 every \ ear. To this is usually added a 

 certain amount of more permanent 

 cultivation. It is at this stage that one 

 still finds a large number of people in 

 the tropics, in districts where the popul- 

 ation has not yet become more than a 

 mere sprinkling. As soon as it becomes 

 denser, agriculture must of necessity 

 become more systematic and regular. 



Round the Veddah country in Ceylon 

 is a thinly populated forest tract; in 

 which the people cultivate a certain 

 amount of rice in regular fields, but as 

 far as possible live upon the produce of 

 their cheuas, and of their mixed gar- 

 den — a type of agriculture which is very 

 widespread in the tropics and which 

 we must now proceed to study briefly, 

 as it is a stage which appears naturally 

 to follow chena. 



The "mixed garden " is a kind of culti- 

 vation — if it may be called by that name 

 for the sake of courtesy and conven- 

 ience — which may be seen in the full 

 vigour of its development in most of the 

 equatorial countries, and particularly 

 well in Ceylon, in India, or in the West 

 Indies. The majority of the huts of the 

 poorer peasantry are surrounded by 

 such gardens, of any size up to an acre 

 or more. 



In the garden there grows a curious 

 mixture of trees, shrubs, and herbs 

 arranged upon no principle but mixed 

 up anyhow— a coconut tree growing 

 next to a mango, and both to a jak, 

 while the space between may be filled in 

 with plantains, pine-apples, and yams, 

 or other things. The land on which this 

 mixture is growing is not tilled in any 

 way, but is allowed to form a sod of 

 grass, upon which one or two miserable 

 specimens of cattle are grazed. The 

 crops— to use this term— growing upon 

 the ground are in general perennials 

 which require no cultivation to keep 

 44 



them actually alive, and as a rule picking 

 the fruits is the whole attention that 

 they receive ; they are not tilled or 

 manured. 



Little consideration is required to see 

 that the mixed garden is a staee beyond 

 simple chena, but of course it would pro- 

 bably arise from an early stage of chena, 

 while it might even come about by the 

 planting of perennial crops in forest 

 which was a little cleared to make room 

 for them. It would naturally arise as 

 the value of the perennial crops began 

 to be recognised. A chena planted with 

 coconuts, mangoes, and other perennials 

 would, in a few years, become a mixed 

 garden. As soon as the coconut, for 

 example, was introduced into the coun- 

 try, and its value was understood, it 

 would be planted in the chenas, and the 

 same with other things, and thus the 

 mixed garden would come into existence. 



Now chena and mixed gardens re- 

 present the stage of progress beyond 

 which many people in the tropics have 

 not yet progressed, so that it is evident 

 that efforts for the amelioration of agri- 

 culture must begin far back. As distin- 

 guished from the collection of wild forest 

 products, they involve a degree of settled 

 tenure of land, and the possession of 

 enough capital to tide over the period 

 of waiting for the crop. This capital 

 need not of course be money, but may 

 be the stored previous crop of food 

 materials. 



To deal with a population engaged in 

 these primitive forms of agriculture, 

 with a view to the actual technical im- 

 provement of their cultivation, is a very 

 difficult matter. Improvement must 

 almost necessarily be in the direction of 

 the abandonment of such methods of 

 cultivation for better ones. To improve 

 chena without bringing in rotation of 

 crops or cultivation of the land is almost 

 impossible, and so also it is difficult to 

 improve mixed garden without bringing 

 in cultivation, and to introduce this 

 successfully the system of mixed garden 

 must almost necessarily be given up for 

 one in which the crops are cultivated on 

 systematic lines. It is, however, very 

 important that the man who has to deal 

 with the improvement of agriculture in 

 the tropics should remember that many 

 of the people with whom he has to deal 

 are not, so far, beyond this stage of pro- 

 gress. For such people the scientific 

 factors in agricultural progress are as yet 

 quite useless, and it is the political that 

 must act. 



To follow evolution in this direction 

 a little further, it would appear prob- 

 able that the mixed garden has develop- 



