reduced permanently in 1898 to Rs.2,00,000 a year, but the share of the profits taken by government was increased from 20 to 30%. There are other ruby mines at Nanyaseik in the Myitkyina district and at Sagyin in the Mandalay district, where the mining is by native methods under licence-fees of Rs.5 and Rs.10 a month. They are, however, only moderately successful. Gold is found in most of the rivers in Upper Burma, but the gold-washing industry is for the most part spasmodic in the intervals of agriculture. There is a gold mine at Kyaukpazat in the Mawnaing circle of the Kathra district, where the quartz is crushed by machinery and treated by chemical processes. Work was begun in 1895, and the yield of gold in that year was 274 oz., which increased to 893 oz. in 1896–1897. This, however, proved to be merely a pocket, and the mine is now shut down. Dredging for gold, however, seems likely to prove very profitable and gold dust is found in practically every river in the hills.
The principal seats of the petroleum industry are Yenangyaung in the Magwe, and Yenangyat in the Pakôkku districts. The wells have been worked for a little over a century by the natives of the country. The Burma Oil Company since 1889 has worked by drilled wells on the American or cable system, and the amount produced is yearly becoming more and more important.
Amber is extracted by Kachins in the Hukawng valley beyond the administrative border, but the quality of the fossil resin is not very good. The amount exported varies considerably. Tourmaline or rubellite is found on the borders of the Ruby Mines district and in the Shan State of Möng Löng. Steatite is extracted from the Arakan hill quarries. Salt is manufactured at various places in Upper Burma, notably in the lower Chindwin, Sagaing, Shwebo, Myingyan and Yamethin districts, as well as at Mawhkio in the Shan State of Thibaw. Iron is found in many parts of the hills, and is worked by inhabitants of the country. A good deal is extracted and manufactured into native implements at Pang Lông in the Lēgya (Laihka) Shan State. Lead is extracted by a Chinese lessee from the mines at Bawzaing (Maw-sōn) in the Myelat, southern Shan States. The ore is rich in silver as well as in lead.
Agriculture.—The cultivation of the land is by far the most important industry in Burma. Only 9.4% of the people were classed as urban in the census of 1901, and a considerable proportion of this number were natives of India and not Burmese. Nearly two-thirds of the total population are directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture and kindred occupations. Throughout most of the villages in the rural tracts men, women and children all take part in the agricultural operations, although in riverine villages whole families often support themselves from the sale of petty commodities and eatables. The food of the people consists as a rule of boiled rice with salted fresh or dried fish, salt, sessamum-oil, chillies, onions, turmeric, boiled vegetables, and occasionally meat of some sort from elephant flesh down to smaller animals, fowls and almost everything except snakes, by way of condiment.
The staple crop of the province in both Upper and Lower Burma is rice. In Lower Burma it is overwhelmingly the largest crop; in Upper Burma it is grown wherever practicable. Throughout the whole of the moister parts of the province the agricultural season is the wet period of the south-west monsoon, lasting from the middle of May until November. In some parts of Lower Burma and in the dry districts of Upper Burma a hot season crop is also grown with the assistance of irrigation during the spring months. Oxen are used for ploughing the higher lands with light soil, and the heavier and stronger buffaloes for ploughing wet tracts and marshy lands. As rice has to be transplanted as well as sown and irrigated, it needs a considerable amount of labour expended on it; and the Burman has the reputation of being a somewhat indolent cultivator. The Karens and Shans who settle in the plains expend much more care in ploughing and weeding their crops. Other crops which are grown in the province, especially in Upper Burma, comprise maize, tilseed, sugar-cane, cotton, tobacco, wheat, millet, other food grains including pulse, condiments and spices, tea, barley, sago, linseed and other oil-seeds, various fibres, indigo and other dye crops, besides orchards and garden produce. At the time of the British annexation of Burma there were some old irrigation systems in the Kyauksè and Minbu districts, which had been allowed to fall into disrepair, and these have now been renewed and extended. In addition to this the Mandalay Canal, 40 m. in length, with fourteen distributaries was opened in 1902; the Shwebo canal, 27 m. long, was opened in 1906, and a beginning had been made of two branches 29 and 20 m. in length, and of the Môn canal, begun in 1904, 53 m. in length. In all upwards of 300,000 acres are subject to irrigation under these schemes. On the whole the people of Burma are prosperous and contented. Taxes and land revenue are light; markets for the disposal of produce are constant and prices good; while fresh land is still available in most districts. Compared with the congested districts in the other provinces of India, with the exception of Assam, the lot of the Burman is decidedly enviable.
Forests.—-The forests of Burma are the finest in British India and one of the chief assets of the wealth of the country; it is from Burma that the world draws its main supply of teak for shipbuilding, and indeed it was the demand for teak that largely led to the annexation of Burma. At the close of the First Burmese War in 1826 Tenasserim was annexed because it was supposed to contain large supplies of this valuable timber; and it was trouble with a British forest company that directly led to the Third Burmese War of 1885. Since the introduction of iron ships teak has supplanted oak, because it contains an essential oil which preserves iron and steel, instead of corroding them like the tannic acid contained in oak. The forests of Burma, therefore, are now strictly preserved by the government, and there is a regular forest department for the conservation and cutting of timber, the planting of young trees for future generations, the prevention of forest fires, and for generally supervising their treatment by the natives. In the reserves the trees of commercial value can only be cut under a licence returning a revenue to the state, while unreserved trees can be cut by the natives for home consumption. There are naturally very many trees in these forests besides the teak. In Lower Burma alone the enumeration of the trees made by Sulpiz Kurz in his Forest Flora of British Burma (1877) includes some 1500 species, and the unknown species of Upper Burma and the Shan States would probably increase this total very considerably. In addition to teak, which provides the bulk of the revenue, the most valuable woods are sha or cutch, india rubber, pyingado, or ironwood for railway sleepers, and padauk. Outside these reserves enormous tracts of forest and jungle still remain for clearance and cultivation, reservation being mostly confined to forest land unsuitable for crops. In 1870–1871 the state reserved forests covered only 133 sq.m., in all the Rangoon division. The total receipts from the forests then amounted to Rs.7,72,400. In 1889–1890 the total area of reserved forests in Lower Burma was 5574 sq.m., and the gross revenue was Rs.31,34,720, and the expenditure was Rs.13,31,930. The work of the forest department did not begin in Upper Burma till 1891. At the end of 1892 the reserved forests in Upper Burma amounted to 1059 sq.m. On 30th June 1896 the reserved area amounted to 5438 sq.m. At the close of 1899 the area of the reserved forests in the whole province amounted to 15,669 sq.m., and in 1903–1904 to 20,038 sq.m. with a revenue of Rs.85,19,404 and expenditure amounting to Rs.35,00,311. In 1905–1906 there were 20,545 sq.m. of reserved forest, and it is probable that when the work of reservation is complete there will be 25,000 sq.m. of preserves or 12% of the total area.
Fisheries.—Fisheries and fish-curing exist both along the sea-coast of Burma and in inland tracts, and afforded employment to 126,651 persons in 1907. The chief seat of the industry is in the Thongwa and Bassein districts, where the income from the leased fisheries on individual streams sometimes amounts to between £6000 and £7000 a year. Net fisheries, worked by licence-holders in the principal rivers and along the sea-shore, are not nearly so profitable as the closed fisheries—called In—which are from time to time sold by auction for fixed periods of years. Salted fish forms, along with boiled rice, one of the chief articles of food among the Burmese; and as the price of salted fish is gradually rising along with the prosperity and purchasing power of the population, this industry is on a very sound basis. There are in addition some pearling grounds in the Mergui Archipelago, which have a very recent history; they were practically unknown before 1890; in the early ’nineties they were worked by Australian adventurers, most of whom have since departed; and now they are leased in blocks to a syndicate of Chinamen, who grant sub-leases to individual adventurers at the rate of £25 a pump for the pearling year. The chief harvest is of mother of pearl, which suffices to pay the working expenses; and there is over and above the chance of finding a pearl of price. Some pearls worth £1000 and upwards have recently been discovered.
Manufactures and Art.—The staple industry of Burma is agriculture, but many cultivators are also artisans in the by-season. In addition to rice-growing and the felling and extraction of timber, and the fisheries, the chief occupations are rice-husking, silk-weaving and dyeing. The introduction of cheap cottons and silk fabrics has dealt a blow to hand-weaving, while aniline dyes are driving out the native vegetable product; but both industries still linger in the rural tracts. The best silk-weavers are to be found at Amarapura. There large numbers of people follow this occupation as their sole means of livelihood, whereas silk and cotton weaving throughout the province generally is carried on by girls and women while unoccupied by other domestic duties. The Burmese are fond of bright colours, and pink and yellow harmonize well with their dark olive complexion, but even here the influence of western civilization is being felt, and in the towns the tendency now is towards maroon, brown, olive and dark green for the women’s skirts. The total number of persons engaged in the production of textile fabrics in Burma according to the census of 1901 was 419,007. The chief dye-product of Burma is cutch, a brown dye obtained from the wood
