308 ANNUAL EEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
NATURE OF THE MILPA SYSTEM. 
The milpa system of agriculture is characterized by the planting 
of crops in temporary clearings. Instead of keeping the same land 
under cultivation, new clearings are cut and burned for planting, 
while clearings of previous years are abandoned to the wild A^egeta- 
tion. Doubtless the utter simplicity of the system has tended to keep 
it from being recognized or studied as a factor of tropical life, 
though of world-wide distribution. The upland cultivation of rice 
among the j)rimitive tribes of tropical Asia and Africa follows the 
same methods as cultivation of maize in the New World Tropics. 
Specialized, permanent systems of terrace agriculture were developed 
for the culture of maize in ancient Peru and in Central America, 
and similar systems of terracing are used for water cultivation of 
rice and other aquatic crops in eastern Asia, but in both hemis- 
pheres the more advanced nations are surrounded by primitive 
neighbors who have continued to use the milpa system. 
How little attention has been given to the relations of agriculture 
and tropical vegetation may be inferred from the fact that English 
and other European languages have had no recognized names for 
this primitive system of crop production which is general in hot 
countries, although such a term is necessary for the simplest purposes 
of definition and discussion. Milpa agriculture would be a con- 
venient designation, the native word " milpa " having been adopted by 
the Spanish-speaking people of Central America in the sense of a 
maize field, or a clearing in the forest, cut and burned for planting 
maize. As an Aztec word, milpa is derived in Eobelo's Diccionario 
de Aztequismos from "milli," a planting, and "pa," in, with the 
remark : " Now applied only to plantings of maize." The vocabulary 
of Brinton's Maya Chronicles includes a verb "mulba," "to congre- 
gate, to come together," the possible connection being that all the 
people of a community usually work together in cutting and 
especially in planting a milpa. " Planting-bees," as we would say, are 
a regular part of the system.^ 
Milpa agriculture appears well adapted to the needs of very primi- 
tive peoples, since only a minimum of labor and equipment is re- 
quired. The ax or the cutlass is the only tool that is necessary. 
Tribes who did not have effective cutting implements felled or 
Agriculture in Tropical America, Proc. Second Pan-American Scientific Congress, Vol. Ill, 
pp. 573-579, 1915-16 ; Agriculture and Native Vegetation in Peru, Jour. Wash. Acad. Sci. 
VI, No. 11, 1916 ; Staircase Farms of the Ancients, National Geographic Magazine. 39, 474. 
1916 ; Domestication of Animals in Peru, Journal of Heredity, 10 : 176, 1919 ; Foot-Plow 
Agriculture in Peru, Smithsonian Report, pp. 487-491, 1918. 
2 The word that corresponds to milpa in Peru and neighboring countries of South 
America is " chacra," but this is applied also to lands that are terraced and tilled con- 
tinuously in the higher valleys. Many agricultural terms in the Quichua language seem to 
be derivatives or cognates of chacra, such as " chakhoni," to clear land ; " chakhoska,'' 
cleared land; " chuquini," to plant seed; " chacmani," to cultivate; " chacuni," to ridge 
or hill the plants ; and " chacchuni," to iiTigate. 
