THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Jfly 2, 1883. 



clats; aud a good deal of time aud money is expended 

 on sugar-cane. The crop, while it demand.s skill, per- 

 severance, and expenditure for its development, returns 

 large profits; and I have known instances in which an 

 outlay of 20 rupees a beegah has been followed by a return 

 of 4(1 rupees, or just cent per cent. Birt the supply of 

 coarse brown sugar of molasses, in liengal, is m.aiidy derived 

 not from the- cane but from the date tree, and the date 

 plantations have, during the last fifty or sixty years, 

 enormously increased over .several well-luiown districts — 

 .Jessore, Burdwan, Baraset. and Nuddea. To explain all 

 the ojjerations by which the juice is collected and treacle 

 boiled, wonKl extend this paper to too great a length. It 

 may be .sutficient to say that the trees are planted in rows 

 or clumps, and are not gro>vii for fruit, as in Arabia or 

 Biluchistan; that the tree becomes profitable after seven 

 years' growth, and may continue to yield a retiu'u for 

 thirty or t\'rty. In the month of October the ryots are 

 seen ascending their date trees, and making incisions on 

 alternate sides, in altei-nate years, on the lowest branch 

 of the feathery tuft at the top. An earthen pit is placed 

 under each incision, and when the cold nights l.iegin, the 

 liquid flows slowly into the pot beneath, whence it is 

 removed in the morning. The colder and .stiller the weather 

 the gi-eater the tiow of juice. Kainy weather, such as now 

 and then interrupts the enjoyable climate of the cold season, 

 stops the flow of juice for a time, but the process goes on, 

 with few intervals, between November and JMarch. The juice 

 is boiled down and clarified by means of a coarse weed that 

 grows in almost evei-y tank, and the whole cultivation is 

 highly remunerative. The spaces between the trees in a date 

 plantation are turned to account otherwise, for early rice and 

 tor the second crop of mustard. 3Iany substantial ryots own 

 400 and 500 and even 1,000 of these trees, and the trafiic in 

 i/oor or treacle, adds life and animation to the interior of 

 Bengal. Towards February, the sight of fifty or a hundred 

 country carts, groaning and creaking over tlie fair-weather 

 roads under quantities of molasses on their way to such 

 celebrated marts as Kissubpur or Kotchandpore, in Jessore, 

 is one which — to borrow an expression of Sydney Smith 

 when he imitated humorously the grave style of Macintosh 

 — explains the objects of commerce, approximates the ditter- 

 ent regions of the earth, and justifies the industry of man. 

 15ut ryots who have neither the industry nor the capital to 

 construct yv«« gardens, or to plant the date or the sugar-cane, 

 yet generally contrive to have something of a garden. A 

 village in Bengal is usually hidden from the eye by its dense 

 mass of fohage. It was a characteristic aud just observation 

 of an eminent North-west civilian (now Member for the 

 Kirkaldy iiiurghs), when he iirst came dow^l to Bengal, that 

 there were few or no large towns to be seen. There are, on 

 the banks of rivers, some very large ginufes, or wholesale 

 marts, or centres of trade; but a rm-al ^-Ulage which contains 

 oUO houses often appears to the eye as a mere jimgle, the 

 wibl cane and brushwood, the feathery grass, the plantain, 

 and scrub of all kinds growing with clumps of bamboos, while 

 waving above them are seen the cocoa palm, the date, the 

 toddy palm, the graceful stems of the arecanut, and, here 

 and there, the pipal and the banyan, those grand trees which 

 Macaulay said were perh.ips older than the Mogul empire it- 

 self. No one can have resided a week in the interior or 

 visited a few villages, without being struck with their per- 

 plexing similOTity, with the recurrence of the same landmarks, 

 with the same fefitures of narrow wini.ling paths, of tanks of 

 every degree of size, cleanliness, or pollution, of gardens sur- 

 rounded by deep ilitches anil slender fences, of sluttish, care- 

 less, rotting abundance, of spaces where weeds and mider- 

 growth seem to struggle for mastei-j' with the egg plant, the 

 red-peppei-, the tobacco, and tlhal and piilse. It iuis been 

 truly remarked that a traveller taken half an hour's journey 

 or ten miles out of Calcutta, and suddenly put down in the 

 centre of an vimbrageous vi'lage, would be puzzled to discern 

 the slightest diflerence bet»veen it and a hundred sinnlar 

 villages, situated north or east, three or four days' joume-y 

 off. It seems impossible to get villagers to understand that 

 ah-, light, and ventilation are essential to health, that fruit 

 trees can be planted too thickly, ami that everything ought 

 not be sacrificed to the mere object of excluding the rays of 

 the sun, and shielding the woman-kind from the intrusive 

 glance of strangers. 



I turn now to tiii' actual processes and the very imple- 

 ments 1)1" Benijali culture. Fortunately. I have by me exact 



models of the implements in use by thousands of cultivators 

 made twenty-five years ago by a village carpenter, aud I have 

 no reason to think that, even in this age of progress their 

 form or substance have in the least altered from what thev 

 were then, and possibly also were in the days of Mann. The 

 plough is in shape very like an anchor. It "is generally made 

 of the wood of the mango or the baubul, and it is a common 

 occurrence for the ryot to find the wood and even the iron 

 for the shares, then go to the viUage carpenter, who will put 

 the two together for four annas, or 6d. I mean that this is 

 more common than buying a plough ready made. It must 

 never be supposed that fiurows are tm-ned by this implement 

 to the depth and regidarity seen on any EngUsh farm. The 

 ryot begins by a series of intemperate and intermittent 

 scratches; ploughs Aowa the field and across the field and 

 down the field again, but in the end often produces a com- 

 plete pulverisation of the glebe. It was remai'ked to me by 

 a friend, at the time when a late Lieutenant-Governor 20 

 years ago was holding agricultural shows all over Bengal, 

 and trying practical experiments with steam ploughs and' 

 deep furrows, that no ryot would ever be satisfied with any 

 conceivable plough except one which he could put over his 

 shorUder and carry home after the d,ay'6 work. I think 

 the outUne of the native plough might "be amended for I 

 have actually guided the plough myself, and found that it is 

 dilficult to get the share to bite, but even on this I hesitate 

 to have a decided opinion, being convinced that, in many 

 points, the ryot has more- to teach us than we have to teach 

 him. Then comes the sowing broadcast, and afterwards what 

 we should call the process of harrowing. The Ben"ali 

 harrow is, however, as unhke our harrow as any oue insfrn- 

 ment can be. It is a simple ladder of bamboo, on which 

 one man takes his stand, while his fellow ilraws the bullocks 

 to which the ladder is attached, by two cords, over the so^vn 

 field. At a distance the ladder is imperceptible, and the 

 ryot seems to be moving over the sm-face without using his 

 legs, as if by some magic power. The effect of this process, 

 when carefully carrieil out, is to make the rice ground 

 almost as level as a bowhng green. The Bengalis have a 

 third process, in which an insti-ument with teeth, a large 

 sort of rake called the hula in some districts, is brought into 

 play. It is used when the rice is about six inches high, 

 and is ilrawn over the open spaces, avoiding the roots of the 

 rice, to prevent the surface caking too much, and to admit 

 of the exhalation of moisture and the sim's ravs. The 

 next operation is that of weeding, aud this is often well 

 done, is often half done, and is sometimes not done at all. 

 The best agiicultiu-al classes weed the Aimion crop sedul- 

 ously in August and September. They use, for this, a small 

 hand-spud, and squat on the ground, covering their heads 

 with an umbrella without a haniUe, made of leaves and 

 split bamboo, in which position they resemble gigantic 

 toadstools. It is a pleasing feature of this operation that 

 each man takes it in turn to help his neighbour. In 

 village language this is termed the ganth, or knot. It is 

 the yanth of Ram Gopal one day, and Tin Kaori Panch 

 Kaori. Nou Kaori Mandal, and all the rest, turn out to weed 

 Ham tiopal'splot at his call, being siue of a like co-operation 

 the next day, each man in his call or turn. The whole 

 stock-in-ti-ade of an onhnary agricidtural ryot will then consist 

 of a pair of bullocks, or, it may be, two pans ; a plough, 

 which may cost one-and-a-half or two rupees, and mav last 

 for twelve mouths or two or three years; the bamboo 

 ladder, which costs much less; the bida, or scuflicr; the 

 weeding spud; a fishba.sket. to be set in the rush of water 

 from one field to another to catch the fish which leave 

 the t,ink.s, and frequent the rice fields in the rains: a iloArfi 

 or mattock, for breaking up new laud, excavatmg ditches' 

 and repairing embankments; and a dmt, or bill-hook, for 

 cutting wood, splitting coconuts, and shaping bamboos. 

 I am sorry to say that this latter weapon is a sore 

 temptation, and plays a pronunent part in domestic or 

 social quarrels; and many a wife, or cousin, or nephew, 

 or neighbour, has had his head cut opeu and his lindis 

 slashed, by an impatient husband or jealous relative, when 

 heat exaspetates the temper, when words rim high, and 

 provoke retaliation by deed. 



Of cultivation by hired servants, there is not much. Sub- 

 stantial men, respectable Brahmins, owners of rent-free 

 lands, and small taliUcdars occasionally get their crops sowii 

 aud reaped in this way. But the best agricnltm-e is to be 

 seen ou the lands of the Hindu agi-iciUtural castes, the 



