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 The whole of the land in the country is supposed to belong to the King, but anybody who wishes to plant rice may go into the jungle and clear a space of ground by burning down the long grass and the trees. For this land the farmer pays no rent, and after a time he can claim it as his own. He pays to the Government, however, a tax upon the land which he cultivates. The farms are small, averaging about eight acres: such a farm will comfortably support a family of four or five.

When the ground has been cleared, the farmers wait for the rain, which falls in torrents, and in due course makes the ground soft enough to permit of ploughing. The plough is made of wood, and consists of a bent stick stuck in a pointed wooden block. The plough cuts a shallow furrow about two inches deep and five or six inches wide. It is drawn by buffaloes, formidable-looking beasts with immense spreading horns, which sometimes measure as much as eight or nine feet from tip to tip, measured round the curve.

When the field has been ploughed, it is harrowed with a square harrow made of bamboo and provided with a number of straight wooden teeth. The result of ploughing and harrowing the wet ground is to churn it up into a kind of porridgy mess of slimy grey mud.

Rice can only be grown where there is abundance of moisture. In Siam the peasants depend for their water-supply upon the heavy rains, and then upon the rise of the rivers after the rains have ceased. The floods not merely provide water, but when they subside