JAVA 
123 
Extensive valleys and mountain sides are terraced and 
levelled in steps, and water is carried front the mountain 
streams so that every plot can be flooded or dried at 
pleasure. These terraced lands are of very great antiquity, 
but they are continually being extended, and they enable 
the ground to produce a constant succession of crops all 
the year round, and year after year, without manure, 
because the fertilising matter held in solution and sus- 
NATIVE HOUSE, JAVA. 
pension by all streams is retained upon the land instead 
of being carried away to the sea and wasted. This mode 
of terracing the land and compelling the streams to 
fertilise it effectually, is probably the most perfect system 
of agriculture conceivable, and could it only be applied in 
our own country, it would enable us at once to solve the 
problem of the economical utilisation of sewage ; for we 
should then have, in all parts of the country, water ready 
to carry and dilute, and land ready levelled to receive the 
rich manures that are now thrown into the sea, having 
