Furnished with the heavy and clumsy hoe, the woman breaks up the ground by sheer manual labor, and manages, in her curious fashion, to combine digging and sowing in one operation. Besides her pick, laid over her shoulder, and possibly a baby slung on her back, she carries to the field a large basket of seed balanced on her head. When she arrives at the scene of her labors, she begins by scattering the seed broadcast over the ground, and then pecks up the earth with her hoe to a depth of some three or four inches. The larger roots and grass tufts are then picked out by hand and removed, but the smaller are not considered worthy of special attention. This constitutes the operation of sowing, and in a wonderfully short time a mixed crop of corn and weeds shoots up. When both are about a month old, the ground is again hoed, and the weeds are then pulled up and destroyed. Owing to the very imperfect mode of cultivation, the soil produces uncertain results, the corn coming up thickly and rankly in some spots, while in others not a blade of corn has made its appearance. When the Kaffir chooses the open ground for his garden, he does not always trouble himself to build a fence, but contents himself with marking out and sowing a patch of ground, trusting to good fortune that it may not be devastated by the numerous foes with which a Kaffir’s garden is sure to be infested. The Kaffir seems to have very little idea of artificial irrigation, and none at all of renovating the ground by manure. Irrigation he leaves to the natural showers, and, beyond paying a professional “rain-maker” to charm the clouds for him, he takes little, if any, trouble about this important branch of agriculture. As to manuring soil, he is totally ignorant of such a proceeding, although the herds of cattle which are kept in every kraal would enable him to render his cultivated land marvellously fertile. The fact is, land is so plentiful that when one patch of it is exhausted he leaves it, and goes to another; and for this reason, abandoned gardens are very common, their position being marked out by remnants of the fence which encircled them, and by the surviving maize or pumpkin plants which have contrived to maintain an unassisted existence.