PUNA KAD, in Salem, Kumari, CAN. of Mysore and Canara, is the Pounam of Malalar, the Chena of Ceylon, and the Tungya of Burma. It is a rude system of, culture followed in all these countries, wherein secluded tribes and others clear parts of the forest. The Irular races and Kurumbar on the Neilgherries, the Malai Arasar on the Shevaroys, the Punam cultivators in Malabar, the Kumari cultivators of Canara, and the Karen in Burma, all endeavour to obtain a precarious subsistence by scattering grain after burning the jungle, and thus avoid, to them, the irksome restraints or civilised life. The Kumari cultivators earn a cheap but wretched subsistence, and live in miserable huts. A hillside is always selected, and at the close of the year a space is cleared. The wood is left to dry till the following March or April, and then burned. The ground is then sown with Italian millet, Panicum Italiemn, as also with rice, Oryza saliva. In Canara, the seed is generally sown in the ashes on the fall of the first rain, without the soil being touched by a plough. It is fenced and weeded, and the crop gathered towards the end of the year. A small crop is taken off the ground in the second year, and sometimes in the third, after which the spot is deserted for 7, 10, or 12 years, until the jungle grow sufficiently high to tempt the tribe to renew the process. In Ceylon, the Chem lasts two
years and includes the culture of chillies, yams, sweet' potatoes, cotton, hemp, etc. About the middle of the 19th century, in Bella], the most southern taluk of Canam, 25,746, or of the rural population, were engaged in it ; but north of that taluk it was carried on by the jungle tribes of Malai ICader and Mahratai to -the number of 59,500. Kumari was then prohibited iu Mysore, and put under great restriction iu the Bombay Presidency ; and the Madras Government, in 1860, prohibited it iu Government forests, without special permission, which they commanded to be given spiringly, and »ever in timber spots. Mr. Cannan, a coffee planter of Wynad, says that in a spot thus treated, only plants re-grow unfit for any building purposes, and lie had never been able to get coffee to grow on it.—Dr. Cleghorn, Reports, 1858 ; Cleghorn's Forests, p. 126.