Miscellaneous. 



160 



f August, 1908. 



systematically, and the period during 

 which the land is allowed to lie fallow is 

 long, the difference between this method 

 of cultivation and agriculture as prac- 

 tised in more civilised countries is not so 

 striking. 



The growth of weeds is so much more 

 rapid in Burma, that I doubt if the agri- 

 cultural methods applicable at Home 

 could effectually cope with them, so it 

 would seem a necessity to allow the land 

 to lie fallow for a certain period, so that 

 weeds may be killed out by a crop of 

 grass or woody plants. 



2. The other three classes comprise 

 taungya cultivation where the nature 

 of the ground does not admit of plough- 

 ing and may be sub-divided as follows : — 



(a) Taungya cultivation where the 

 taungya areas are fire-protected and 

 worked under a fixed rotation. This 

 method is largely practised in the Karen 

 Hills and in the south-west of the 

 Southern Shan States. 



(&) Taungya cultivation where the 

 area is not fire-protected but a rotation 

 of sorts is observed. 



(c) Taungya cultivation where there 

 is neither fire-protection nor rotation, 

 i.e., taungya cultivation in its most 

 primitive form, carried out for the most 

 part in virgin forest. 



3. The attitude of the Forest Depart- 

 ment is not unnaturally hostile to 

 taungya cultivation in any shape or 

 form, but the fact remains that, in 

 the present state of their agricultural 

 knowledge, taungya cultivation of some 

 description must be permitted to 

 enable the various people in the 

 hilly localities to live, and our various 

 proposals to abolish it altogether in 

 certain areas are generally viewed rather 

 unsympathetically by the powers that 

 be. 



Till quite recently the efforts of the 

 Forest Department to curtail the areas 

 used by the taungya cutter were under- 

 taken more in the interests of teak than 

 with a view to the preservation of the 

 forests for climatic reasons. In recent 

 years, however, the question of protect- 

 ing our forests for climatic reasons 

 against the inroads of the taungya cutter 

 has come prominently forward, and the 

 authorities are less suspicious of our 

 efforts in this direction than formerly 

 they appeared to be. I would submit, 

 however, that the attitude of the Forest 

 Department is still too uncompromis- 

 ingly hostile to the taungya cultivator. 

 We are not inclined to recognise him as 

 an evil that has to be tolerated. We 

 strive to abolish him rather than to 

 regulate his devastations. 



4. To turn to the classification of 

 taungya cultivation given above. The 

 chief evil in the case of the first two 

 groups (upland and fire-protected taun- 

 gyas) is that the taungya areas, instead 

 of being concentrated in one block, are 

 scattered in small patches over huge 

 areas, each patch being an unnecessarily 

 large distance from that of the previous 

 year and chosen unsystematically, the 

 choice depending on the instinct or 

 superstition of the taungya cutter. 

 Thus where some 50 acres under a proper 

 rotation are required by each individual 

 taungya cutter, he probably scatters his 

 patches over ten times this area and 

 hacks away the intervening forest, 

 partly to remove shade from his crops, 

 partly on account of his irresistible 

 propensity to hack at every thing tree- 

 like. Were it not for their scattered 

 nature upland cultivation and fire-pro- 

 tected taungya cultivation would do 

 comparatively little harm. 



5. Un-fire-protected taungya cultiva- 

 tion, however, falls into a very different 

 category from either of the above two 

 groups and requires a much greater 

 measure of control as much in the 

 interests of the taungya cutters them- 

 selves where they are confined to a res- 

 tricted area as in the interests of the 

 forests, where a fixed taungya rotation 

 is adopted ; if the areas to be cut over 

 are not protected from being annually 

 burnt, the soil deteriorates from year 

 to year, the woody growth which is 

 depended on for manure gets scantier 

 and fails to protect the soil, so that the 

 crops get poorer year by year and pro- 

 bably in course of time the taungya 

 areas become almost completely sterile. 



Taungya cultivation without a rota- 

 tion need not be taken into consider- 

 ation. There can be no question but 

 that it should be stopped drastically. 



6. To properly regulate taungya culti- 

 vation in unclassed areas is beyond the 

 power of our present establishment. 

 We may have it stopped in certain areas; 

 but this probably results in the areas not 

 closed to taungya cutting being merci- 

 lessly overworked. We may try to res- 

 trict the use of fire in the areas where 

 taungya cutting is permitted by pro- 

 hibitory order ; but even if the inhabi- 

 tants themselves were careful in the use 

 of fire, the areas would be almost certain 

 to be burnt through carelessness of 

 passing wayfarers. 



Taungya cultivation in unclassed forest 

 can in my opinion only be properly regu- 

 lated by a settlement which allots to 

 each village an area where it can cut 

 taungyas Such a settlement would 

 take time and cost money ; but the hills 



