according to the practice of that singular people,
so destructive to industry. The peasant and his
family bestow their labours exclusively on their own
possessions. The Javanese pursue the labours of
agriculture with pleasure, and consider them rather
as an enjoyment than a task. It is here only that
their industry assumes an active and systematic
character!' The women take a large share of the
labour. The work of the plough, the harrow, and
mattock, with all that concerns the important operations
of irrigation, are performed by the men»
but the lighter labours of sowing, transplanting,
reaping, and housing, belong almost exclusively to
the women.
CHAPTER m
HUSBANDRY OF THE MATERIALS OF FOOD.
Cujtivatiofi o f rice.— This grain known by one name through-
out the Archipelago.— Mountain and marsh rice.— Culture ,
o f fugitive crops of mountain rice by burning the forest lands.
-— Culture office in dry arable lands.— Culture o f rice vi
marsh lands by the periodical rains.— Culture o f rice by artificial
irrigation.— Sowing and reaping.—Fecundity o f rice.
•—Maize.— Probably an object o f culture before the discovery
of. America.— Modes o f culture.—Fecundity.—Pulses.—.
Two chiefly objects o f attention.— Cultivation o f plants with
nutritive roots— The yam or Igname.— Sweet potatoes or
Batates.—Kantang, or Javanese potatoe.— Talas.—Euro-
pean esculent plants.—Wheat.— Common potatoe.— Garden
stuff's^—Native culinary plants.—Thecucumber.—Theonion.
— The capsicum Oil-giving plants.— The cocoa-nut.—
The ground pestachio.—Ricinus, or Palma Christi.—Sago.
— Is the principalfarinaceousfood o f the peopleof the eastern
portion of the Archipelago.— Cultivation.— Native country
o f the sago palm ascertained from the evidence o f language.
— Mode o f reaping the sago harvest, and preparing the f a rina.—
Mode o f preparationfor storing.— Edible mushrooms
and worms generated from the refuse.— Fecundity o f sago.
T h e su bjects o f th e p r e sen t chapter are th e Cereal
gramina, p u lse s, farinaceous ro o ts, o il-g iv in g
p lan ts,an d s a g o .