plough and of manure, their fertility being exhausted by exposure to the sun.  How far the returns in general might be increased by the introduction of these improvements in agriculture I cannot take upon me to determine; but I fear that, from the natural indolence of the natives, and their want of zeal in the business of pepper-planting, occasioned by the smallness of the advantage it yields to them, they will never be prevailed upon to take more pains than they now do.  The planters therefore, depending more upon the natural qualities of the soil than on any advantage it might receive from their cultivation, find none to suit their purpose better than those spots which, having been covered with old woods and long fertilized by decaying foliage and trunks, have recently been cleared for ladangs or padi-fields, in the manner already described; where it was also observed that, being allured by the certainty of abundant produce from a virgin soil, and having land for the most part at will, they renew their toil annually, and desert the ground so laboriously prepared after occupying it for one, or at the furthest for two, seasons.  Such are the most usual situations chosen for the pepper plantations (kabun) or gardens, as they are termed; but, independently of the culture of rice, land is very frequently cleared for the pepper in the first instance by felling and burning the trees.

(Footnote.  See Remarks on the Species of Pepper (and on its Cultivation) at Prince of Wales Island, by Dr. William Hunter, in the Asiatic Researches Volume 9 page 383.)

FORMATION OF THE GARDEN.

The ground is then marked out in form of a regular square or oblong, with intersections throughout at the distance of six feet (being equal to five cubits of the measure of the country), the intended interval between the plants, of which there are commonly either one thousand or five hundred in each garden; the former number being required from those who are heads of families (their wives and children assisting them in their work), and the latter from single men.  Industrious or opulent persons sometimes have gardens of two or three thousand vines.  A border twelve feet in width, within which limit no tree is suffered to grow, surrounds each garden, and it is commonly separated from others by a row of shrubs or irregular hedge.  Where the nature of the country admits of it the whole or greater part of the gardens of a dusun or village lie adjacent to each other, both for the convenience of mutual assistance in labour and mutual protection from wild beasts; single gardens being often abandoned from apprehension of their ravages, and where the owner has been killed in such a situation none will venture to replace him.

VEGETATING PROPS.