330 
SPICES 
CHA.P. 
slow, is certainly less wasteful than burning them. In 
some forests there would be too much of this under- 
growth to be left on the ground even in piles, and 
some would have to be removed in some way. The 
system of leaving the weedings, branches, etc., just 
pulled into heaps or lines if abundant, or left where 
it falls if scanty, is the plan adopted in the cultivation 
of gutta-percha, a shade-lover in the Malay peninsula, 
and I have cultivated nutmegs, cloves, camphor, and 
ramie in the same way. The ordinary planter, how- 
ever, has a horror of seeing rubbish left on the ground, 
and prefers an extensive and thorough conflagration, 
which is, of course, impracticable where shade trees are 
to be left. 
The Malabarese, according to White, recommend it 
as an infallible sign of fertility if the large trees on 
falling cause a trembling of the soil, and this he 
accounts for by the fact that where the soil is of great 
depth with a spongy mass of roots or fibres the shock 
of a big tree falling will be felt, while where there are 
strata of rocky or gravelly nature it would be less 
readily noticed, and thus the trembling of the earth 
shows that the soil is rich and deep. Ludlow, in 
talking of the tradition among the Coorgs, says that 
in olden times the people noticed that it only grew in 
places where the ground had been shaken by the fall of 
some large tree or of a large branch thrown down by 
the force of the wind, especially when this had happened 
a short time previous to the falling of the annual showers 
in March and April. 
In imitation of this during the months of February 
and March they selected in their jungles the largest 
trees and felled them, previously cutting down all the 
smaller surrounding trees and brushwood, which would 
otherwise have lessened the shock given to the ground. 
The mere clearing of the ground and letting in the light 
would account for the springing up of the plants, if their 
rhizomes and seeds were in the ground. Scitamineous 
plants frequently appear in abundance on the felling of 
