Lessons of the Village Garden

Primitive Agriculture in Papua

By Mollie Lett

rE progressive farmer is apt to smile at the mention of native agricul ture. But that there is method and reason in some primitive practices is amply proved in Papua.

The country about Port Moresby is arid. The hills are steep and stony. The annual rainfall averages about 30 inches, but it falls only from December to March, with a chance of light showers in November and April. During the rest of the year there is no rain, stream-beds are dry and springs few and small; and the action of the tropical sun is rein forced by the salt trade-wind that blows strongly from the sea.

In such country, agriculture presents endless problems and demands unceas ing work. Yet, within two miles of Port Moresby, there was—and maybe still is— a group of villages with a population of more than 2,000 natives, who have to depend upon agriculture for food.

FOOD-GARDENS usually vary from a quarter-acre to two acres in extent.

The first* operation is to pull up, by hand, the tufts of coarse grass that are the only form of vegetation, except stunted gum. The tufts are laid neatly, side by side, in parallel rows, to cover the whole surface of the projected garden.

If there is not enough of it, more grass is brought from outside the area, until the whole of the ground is covered.

The garden is then fenced. As no suit able material grows on this barren land,

the ri S h t to cut what is needed must be bought, after keen bargaining, from the members of a neighbouring tribe.

Saplings, from one to two inches in diameter, are cut into lengths of seven to eight feet, and tied in bundles of 50 to 80. At the same time, lengths of vine are gathered and rolled into balls of 30 to 40 pounds weight; and saplings and vine are then carried on the shoulders of the men, over five or six miles of rough country, to the site of the garden.

The fence consists of sticks thrust into the ground at intervals of three inches.

Rails, composed of other sticks placed transversely at a few inches, two feet, and five feet, above the ground, are lashed in place by lengths of vine, and the fence is complete.

Such a fence, if the material is carefully selected and the work faithfully done, will serve for two years to prevent the ravages of marsupials, pigs, and wild horses. iimEN the time for planting arrives, }/\ always towards the end of the dry season, roots, slips, and suckers are taken from one of the old gardens According to the depth of soil, exposure to the prevailing winds, the amount of shade afforded by the surrounding hills, and the rapidity with which moisture will evaporate, a garden may be devoted entirely to root-crops such as yams and sweet-potatoes, to plantains and bananas, to sugar-cane, or to maize; or, more commonly, all may be grown together, without any order or method that the uninitiated can perceive.

Such points are not settled without argument. A stranger, wandering about the hills at this time of the year, might

be excused for believing that the sus tained fury of shouting and gesture among groups of natives was the pre liminary to tribal warfare, or at least to an outbreak of murder.

Women have a great deal to say in such discussions; for upon them fall the duties of planting and of the care of growing crops. They also harvest the yield of the garden and carry it to the village, so that a distance of anything over two miles from home rouses them to concerted, but ephemeral, rebellion, Again, the conditions on the site determine whether or not the ground is dug before planting.

In the bottoms of some valleys, where soil washed down from the hills by heavy rains has collected to a depth of almost a foot, the whole surface is sometimes turned over by means of wooden spades, shaped very much like canoe-paddles, On the hill sides, or in valleys where the depth of surface soil will not permit of digging, just enough of the surface is broken up with chisel-pointed staffs of palm-wood to admit of planting a root ° r f handful of slips, and the soil imme diately surrounding it is scraped to aether into a mound which will give sustenance to the growing plant W onle f^thaf be *£osubsoil but onlva ma^of^rumb 6

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nHrinnfi of (; teriip ght ’ and m the rams 18 r ;. ie A BENEVOLENT Government decided ii some years ago to introduce mod em methods. Ploughing, closer

planting, rotation of crops and conse quent economy of land, the abandon ment of mixed cropping, frequent til lage, and the proper use of fertilisers, were all taught with care and persis tence. The natives were polite and attentive; and, on learning that there was no compulsion in the matter, reverted joyously to their old customs.

Ploughing, they explained, was too expensive and too difficult in that stony and boulder-strewn ground. Even the lightest ploughing disturbed the subsoil and made the ground unfit for use. And, more important, it increased enormously the erosive action of sun and wind; and where every peck of soil has its definite value, increased erosion is a disaster.

Terracing was recommended; but local experience decided that the old method of mounds was more economical. Mixed cropping was adhered to because soil variation proved that, although the ground underfoot might be suitable for yams, that a yard away must be used for

grain, while a few feet further it was fittest for plantains. Where the soil would permit unity of cropping the sys tem was already in use; and mixed crop ping was resorted to only on mixed ground. rE Government was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that mod ern science has nothing to teach these hard-working agriculturists, who are at continual war with nature in con ditions that would drive any English farmer into the nearest asylum. So they continue to cultivate by the method that the hungry land has taught them, tilling their carefully proportioned mounds no more than is needed, and adding to the grass mulch such weeds as show them selves. Gardens are kept in cultivation for two years, and are then left in fal low for eight to ten years, according to the seasons and the amount of growth that covers them.

In other parts of Panua, other methods obtain. In certain villages in the west ern swamps, vegetables are grown inten sively on raised beds fertilised by pig manure and burned village rubbish.

In the Chimbu Valley, at an elevation of 6,000 feet, the natives pull all the grass on the area, burn it, and dig the ash into the soil, while their neighbours to the east dig in green vegetation with out the preliminary burning.

The prevalent fashion in those moun tain districts, where the soil is volcanic and of great depth, is to divide the gar

dens into 10-foot squares by means of shallow and narrow trenches, throwing up the soil from the trenches onto the ground to be planted. There is no fur ther cultivation.

The trenches serve no visible purpose.

Their use is plainly a survival from early times when their ancestors lived in another country, and in very different conditions.