AND COLLEGE, PUSA, FOR 1915-16 30 



Cook, R.G.A., with one of the mule teams of the 4th 

 Mountain Battery. The trial has been a great success and 

 the mules did better on shaftal hay than on their ordinary 

 ration of bhusa and grain. The saving in weight was 

 about 30 per cent, and the cost was also substantially 

 reduced. There is now little doubt that the use of baled 

 shaftal as fodder for Army purposes would mean a reduc- 

 tion in the weight of forage of some 30 per cent., a point 

 of considerable importance on the Frontier where the diffi- 

 culties of transport are so great. 



Shaftal and lucerne are b^no means the only legumin- 

 ous plants in North-West India, that could be made into 

 hay and pressed into bales. There should be no difficulty 

 in drying and pressing crops like berseem and senji which 

 are already cultivated in Sind and the Punjab respectively. 

 The albuminoid ratio of such fodders is much above that of 

 bhusa and there is a great opening for such produce both 

 in the Army and also in the cities and on the main roads 

 of North-Western India. Later it might spread to the 

 cultivators and for the building up of fodder reserves for 

 use in time of famine. Once such fodders as shaftql hay 

 find their way into Indian agriculture, the efficiency of the 

 ox, on which the system rests, will increase and at the same 

 time the producing power of the land will improve. 



Besides their local significance, these results on water- 

 saving and fodder-growing have a distinct bearing on the 

 development of Indian Agriculture. To anyone who can 

 read his practice in the plant, there can be no doubt that in 

 the irrigated tracts of the country, a great waste of valuable- 

 irrigation water is going on which is not only lost but also 

 damages the standing crops and tends to lower the general 

 fertility of the country. There are many tracts in India 

 where a perennial system of irrigation is scarcely suitable 

 and where the duty of water might be increased by working 

 on older lines and by substituting in its place a modified 

 form of inundation. The problem of using the present 

 supplies of water in India in wheat-growing is largely 

 phvsiological and depends for its solution on a knowledge* 



