plough, there passes a long heavy wooden beam. This is fastened into a socket in the plough, just below the handle. It is tied to the yoke with a thong of hide, or a long strip of rattan cane, and ends in a graceful curve a foot or two above the heads of the animals. The free end of the beam is often decorated with flowers, feathers, or brightly coloured ribbons. Pieces of rope passed through holes in the nostrils are the native substitute for the European bridle, harness, and reins. Thus the whole weight of the plough, the beam, and the yoke rests upon the necks of the animals. With one hand on the plough, and the other loosely grasping the reins, the field labourer toils through the broiling heat of the day, guiding the great clumsy-looking animals by an occasional tug at the reins, or urging them to greater speed with long low groan-like exclamations. The harrow is square in shape, is made of bamboo, and bears a number of straight wooden teeth. It is drawn by buffaloes, yoked and harnessed as in the case of the plough. As rice only grows where there is an excess of moisture, an abundant supply of water must be produced either by natural or artificial means. There is scarcely any artificial irrigation in Siam, for the peasants depend upon the chance rise of the rivers to flood the fields after the heavy rains are over. These floods not only inundate the low-lying plains, and so save the peasant the trouble of watering his fields himself, but when they subside they leave behind a deposit of mud so rich and fertile that manuring is rendered unnecessary. And as these floods are of annual occurrence, any system of rotation of crops has never been considered. Occasionally some farmer deems it advisable to adopt some artificial method of inundating his fields, and various methods of doing this are in use. In none of them, however, are pumps ever used, though considering the number of canals that thread the country from end to end, one would think that the easiest and most natural way of getting the water from the canal into the fields would be by means of pumps connected to a series of troughs that would carry the water to any point where it was required. Instead of a pump, various arrangements of baskets and buckets are employed. The baskets, which are made of cane and pitched inside and out to prevent leakage, will hold about seven or eight gallons. They are so suspended by a system of ropes, that a couple of children can easily scoop up water from the canal and pour it on to the adjacent rice-patch. When the fields in the immediate neighbourhood of the water-supply have been deluged, the water is passed over into the fields further away by means of a large wooden scoop, which takes up a few gallons at a time. This process is repeated for each successive field, and eventually the whole of the farm receives the requisite amount of water.