The Imperial Gazetteer of India
Meyer, William Stevenson, Sir, 1860-1922.
Burn, Richard, Sir, 1871-1947.
Cotton, James Sutherland, 1847-1918.
Risley, Sir Herbert Hope, 1851-1911.
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New edition, published under the authority of His Majesty's secretary of state for India in council.
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1908-1931 [v. 1, 1909]

238 NORTHERN SHAN STATES
is an isolating language, abounding in tones. Burmese Shan (spoken in the States), Hkamti, and Chinese Shan have been placed in the northern, and Hkum and Lu in the southern subgroup of the Tai group, one of the main subdivisions of the Siamese-Chinese sub-family of the Indo Chinese language family. The total of Shans of all kinds in the Province in rgor was approximately 850,000. There is nothing peculiar connected with the agricultural conditions of the country. The valleys of the States are devoted to low-lying irrigated rice (Shan, na), and the hills to taungya (Shan, hai) shifting cultivation. In many parts the
numerous deserted paddy-fields appear to point to exhaustion of the soil. This is especially the case at some distance from the hill-slopes; but nearer the hills, the decayed vegetable matter brought down yearly by the torrents after the destructive jungle fires fertilizes the rice lands, and maintains their yield. Artificial manures are hardly ever used in wet' cultivation. in taungya or hai cultivation the selected hill-slope is prepared by burning the grass, and ploughing and harrowing the ground.
The trees are then ringed, the branches lopped off and piled round the trunk, and the whole fired just before the first rains are expected. The ashes are next distributed in small heaps and loose earth is raked over them, the leaves and stubble below are then fired, and the earth is burnt and becomes brick-red in colour, after which the heaps are again spread
out and the seed is sown when the rains begin. A taungya can be worked for a term varying in different parts of the country, but rarely exceeding three years. It is a ruinous method of cultivation, for the organic matter is volatilized, and the ash constituents only are left in a
highly soluble condition; the available plant-food is in consequence rapidly taken up by the crop, which diminishes each year, and a great quantity of the fertilizing matter is carried down the hill-slopes by surface drainage. In parts of the South Hsenwi State the land has been so thoroughly deforested that little remains but grass, and manure has to take the place of wood-ash in the process described above. Garden crops are grown on the slopes throughout the States in much the same way as taungyas, but cattle-manure and ashes are always freely used.
The tea cultivation which affords their chief occupation to the Palaungs of Tawngpeng, and to the inhabitants of the hilly Kodaung district of tisipaw and of Namlawk in the Wa State of Kanghso, is deserving of special mention. In Tawngpeng the dark-brown clayey loam is covered with large quantities of decaying vegetable matter, and, as the tea shrub
luxuriates in the shade, a hill-slope covered with dense forest is usually selected. The gardens are not laid out on any system, but at random. Seed is collected in November and sown in nurseries in February or later.- The plants are kept there till they reach a height of z feet or so (generally in the second year), and are then planted out in the clearings

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Graphics file for this page >> Sourthern Shan State

ေဝႃးႁၢၼ်ၵႂၢမ်းတႆးဢၼ်လီလႆႈမႆၢတွင်း
hai na = ႁႆႈ ၼႃး
Kanghso = ၵၢင်းသူိဝ်