[Footnote 2:  HUMBOLDT is disposed to ascribe the absence of trees in the vast grassy plains of South America, to “the destructive custom of setting fire to the woods, when the natives want to convert the soil into pasture:  when during the lapse of centuries grasses and plants have covered the surface with a carpet, the seeds of trees can no longer germinate and fix themselves in the earth, although birds and winds carry them continually from the distant forests into the Savannahs.”—­Narrative, vol. i. ch. vi. p. 242.]

The natives in the same lofty localities find no deficient returns in the crops of rice, which they raise in the ravines and hollows, into which the earth from above has been washed by the periodical rains; but the cultivation of rice is so entirely dependent on the presence of water, that no inference can be fairly drawn as to the quality of the soil from the abundance of its harvest.

The fields on which rice is grown in these mountains form one of the most picturesque and beautiful objects in the country of the Kandyans.  Selecting an angular recess where two hills converge, they construct a series of terraces, raised stage above stage, and retiring as they ascend along the slope of the acclivity, up which they are carried as high as the soil extends.[1] Each terrace is furnished with a low ledge in front, behind which the requisite depth of water is retained during the germination of the seed, and what is superfluous is permitted to trickle down to the one below it.  In order to carry on this peculiar cultivation the streams are led along the level of the hills, often from a distance of many miles, with a skill and perseverance for which the natives of these mountains have attained a great renown.

[Footnote 1:  The conversion of the land into these hanging farms is known in Ceylon as “assuedamizing,” a term borrowed from the Kandyan vernacular, in which the word “assuedame” implies the process above described.]

In the lowlands to the south, the soil partakes of the character of the hills from whose detritus it is to a great extent formed.  In it rice is the chief article produced, and for its cultivation the disintegrated laterite (cabook), when thoroughly irrigated, is sufficiently adapted.  The seed time in the southern section of the island is dependent on the arrival of the rains in November and May, and hence the mountains and the maritime districts at their base enjoy two harvests in each year—­the Maha, which is sown about July and August, and reaped in December and January, the Yalla which is sown in spring, and reaped from the 15th of July to the 20th September.  But owing to the different description of seed sown in particular localites, and the extent to which they are respectively affected by the rains, the times of sowing and harvest vary considerably on different sides of the island.[1]

[Footnote 1:  The reaping of other descriptions of grain besides rice occurs at various periods of the year according to the locality.]