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142 rice, kauk-kyi, which supplies practically all the crop for export is the most important. In Upper Burma, besides rice grown on fields watered by rainfall, great quantities are raised on irrigated land. In dry districts, a winter crop, mayin, is sown in the cold season on the edges of meres and on marshy depressions and reaped in the early rains. In the hills is practised a wasteful form of cultivation known as taungya. The trees and undergrowth are cut down and burnt in the dry weather and rice seed is dibbled in as soon as the rains begin. After garnering the crop, the taungya cutter usually abandons the field and starts afresh next year on another plot. The same ground is seldom cultivated two years in succession and is not re-visited till at least the undergrowth has sprung up again. It will be understood that this practice may involve the destruction of much valuable forest.

The area under rice cultivation is over 10,000,000 acres, of which over 8,000,000 acres are in Lower Burma. The principal rice-growing districts in Lower Burma are Pegu (868,987) ; Hanthawaddy (789,385); Myaung-mya (701,563); Bassein (697,572); Pyapôn (660,948); Akyab (656,203); Thatôn (623,803); Insein (530,759); Tharrawaddy (529,224); Henzada (527,361); Amherst (424,491); Toungoo (400,731); Ma-u-bin (392,336); Prome (324,577). In Upper Burma, Shwebo (444,975) with a vast area under irrigation, alone rivals these great rice-producing districts. Katha (183,771) and Yamèthin (176,686) come next but far behind.

The out-turn of rice is enormous and has been increasing almost year by year. The estimated crop in 1921–22 amounted to 6,900,000 tons of paddy. Of this quantity, it was expected that 4,000,000 tons of paddy, or 2,600,000 tons of cargo rice would be available for export.

Dry crops. Though rice is so vastly the most important,