July 2, 18S3.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



53 



Kopali, the Teor, the Sudgope, the Kaivert, who correspond 

 practically to the Jats and Kurmls of Upper India. There 

 is, however, a thii-d mode of cultivation, besides ploughing 

 youi' own land with yoiu' own bullocks, or sending your own 

 hired servants to do the work. It is known in Bengal as the 

 Barga system. One man may have land but neither plough 

 or bullock ; another man may have bullocks, but not too much 

 land, and can devote spare time to the. lands of others, when 

 he has sown his own. So the two agree in this fashion. The 

 ryot who has a pair of oxen, brings them to the plot of 

 another, and exjjends on it his labour and time. Some- 

 times seed is advanced by the tenant proprietor who has 

 no bullocks ; but when all the agricultural operations have 

 been gone thi-ough, the simple contract is determined by 

 the division of the crop, gi-ain and straw, as sown and 

 reaped. The man who does the work is, of course, under 

 no liability for the rent of the land. Threshing, I should 

 mention, is generally done out on the plain, and not near 

 the ryot's house. A spot on the edge of the field is 

 smoothed, cleared of weeds or stalks, and hardened till 

 it becomes like a pavement, and the threshing is accom- 

 plished by the simple process of allowing the bullocks to 

 tread out the seed. The Scriptmral precept of not muzzhng 

 the animal is invariably observed. The rice, when threshed, 

 is carted or carried away U^ the i-yot's house, and some- 

 times half-boiled, and stored in pits, or oftener stacked 

 on round frames, called golas, till it is wanted for con- 

 sumption or sale. The process of separating the husk 

 from the rice, and making the latter fit for cooking, is 

 carried on by an instrument, called a dhenki^ or wooden 

 pestle and mortar. This duty is usually performed by 

 women. My description of agricultine takes no account 

 of the years when the failure of the usual rainfall niflicts 

 misery on thou-sands, and cliills the hearts of administrators 

 and financiers. To enter on the subject of famines would 

 require larger space and time than be afforded; and the 

 Keport of the Famine Commission, I believe, deals effectively 

 with this subject. I keep strictly, therefore, within the 

 limits originally proposed. A few words on the general 

 effect and outtm'u may not be amiss. Nothing is more 

 striking to a patient obsei-ver than, the variety, not of the 

 processes, but of the results. I was once in a position to ob- 

 serve narrowly and constantly the difference between tilth 

 in the hands of capable and incapable workmen. "Within a 

 couple of miles of each other were two Ullages, enjoying the 

 same advantages of soil, rainfall, and climate. One belonged 

 to the agricultiu-al caste of Hindus known as Sadgope. Men 

 of this class have no handicraft, desire no appointment as 

 peon, watchman, or policeman, do not even care to drive a 

 cart, but devote themselves exclusively to agriculture. The 

 result was that bulloeks and milch kine abounded: large 

 families occupied each homestead; every plot of ground 

 was thoroughly ploughed, harrowed, and weeded; the returns 

 were soUd and each family or household was, if not rich, 

 certainly indeijendent, and far removed from indigence or 

 suffering. The other, a much larger village, was occupied by 

 the class of Jlohammedans known as Jolha Karigars, or 

 weavers. In the lands of this village were comprised early 

 and late rice, orchards of mango trees or plantains, and date 

 trees. Several of the ryt^ts had small local employments, 

 which brought them regularly in a few rupees a month. 

 Several carried on the trade of weaving, and turned out 

 light suits of clothes, which, I am sorry to say, twenty-five 

 years ago were being gradnaliy improved off by the market 

 by Manchester or Amerie.in piece goods. There could be 

 nn doubt that more money cucidated in the Mohammedan 

 ' in in the Hindu village, but the difference in agiiculture 

 s apparent to the casual glance."" The ploughing was 

 ;iL'riicial, the harrowing careless, and the weeding was 

 ^let-ted. I lay stress on this point, because I have seen 

 .tated that the returns from Indian agriculture might 

 indefinitely increased by what is termed the outlay of 

 ( pital, scientific processes, the use of manures, and other 

 grand and ambitious schemes. As regards manure, X am 

 glad to observe that Mr. Hunter, in his recent st^Jtistical 

 uplumes, puts this matter on its proper footing. Most ryots 

 know the value of manm-e for high lauds, and it is con- 

 stantly applied to date and sugar cultivation, and to gardens. 

 For the deep and late rice no manure is needed. The best 

 restorative to the lands in such cases, I hold to be con- 

 tinuous tropical rain, or the silt brought down by the Ganges 

 and its affluents or distributaries. In any caee, the absence 



of maniu-e is due to poverty and not to ignorance and 

 it would require an exhaustive description of the rights 

 privileges, and duties of superior ownership to explain why 

 large Zemindars do not du-ect cultivation, and cannot be 

 expected to expend capital on manure, Oowdung, which 

 aboimds, and has certain fertilising properties, is too valuable 

 as an article of fuel to be stored up for manme. It has 

 always appeared to me, from close attention given to this 

 subject, that (as I have already remarked; those who talk 

 glibly about mstructmg the Bengal ryot will have to admit, 

 when they have watched him at work, that they may derive 

 a good many lessons from his operations. No doubt there 

 are many instances which appeal to the eye of imperfect tilth 

 and second-rate crops. But the average ryot is thoroughly 

 well acquainted with the set and lay of his fields, his ueigh- 

 bom-'s, and their watersheds. He knows when to sow 

 and plant out, and weed. He rarely puts the Aoos where 

 the Aumon should be planted, though I have noted one or 

 two instances of peri'erseness or obstinacy in this respect. 

 He knows how to dam up water, and store it or let it off as 

 required; he is quite aware of the fact that tobacco, sugar- 

 cane, red pepper, or the pulse called dhal, require constant 

 and close supervision. He will frequently sell the very 

 stubble oft" his field for fuel to the sugar manufacturer, after 

 the regular straw has been carted away; he knows how to 

 build, repair, and thatch his house; how to store his straw 

 and the neatness and cleanliness of bis actual residence in- 

 cluding com'tyard, verandah, and cooking house, is in striking 

 contrast to the accumulation of tUrt and decaying vegetation 

 outside his residence, which taints the air, defiles the water 

 and engenders divers forms of deadly disease. 



No doubt the laboiu: of a Bengal ryot is not equal to that 

 of the thews and sinews of a Northumbrian or York.shireman. 

 A strong Hindu agricultiu-ist may plough one beegah of land 

 in a day; and the Bengal beegah. in contradistinction to that 

 of Tuhoot, is about one-third of our English acre. He 

 woidd di-ive the harrow or ladder over eight or ten beega'bs. 

 To weed only a quarter of a beegah woidd be an extremely 

 good day's work ; and to plant out a beegah of land with rice 

 plants would requke the imdivided labom- of tlu-ee men a day. 

 I have timed men at this operation, and noted that one good 

 worker put in sixty-five to seventy-five plants to the minute. 

 His rapidity and dexterity were perfectly surprising. A less 

 vigorous worker only put in fifty to the minute, and three 

 Mohammedans a/lmitted to me that this part of the work 

 broke their backs. A few other minute st,atistics may here 

 not be out of place. They were collected when 1 had no 

 thought of presenting them to an English audience. 



A stalk of late rice, 4 ft. long, taken out of a fair average 

 crop on the 1st November, about three weeks before the 

 harvest, contained 174 grains; another, in the same plot. 3 ft. 

 10 in., had 134 grains. On the 7th November, 206 grains 

 were comited on a single one of six or eighc stems growing 

 from one and the same root; another stem had 133. Later, 

 in the same year, on November 30th, a rice stalk from a 

 thick clump, about which in orcUnary years there would have 

 been a foot of water, gave 233 grains. On the 30th December 

 following, three stalks of rice, in the same plot, gave respect- 

 ively, 200, 145, and 16S. Here again is an account of the 

 return of rather more than one beegah of early or Aoos rice. 

 Two varieties were sown (Mahesh Dhali an<l Baro Jaim'iya), 

 the former gave fifty-five baskets of ten seers each ; the latter, 

 thirty-six baskets. The best ears of the Mahesh Dhali gave 

 290 and 270 grains each. The Baro .Jamiiya gave less, but 

 of a finer kind, being 117 and 113. This was cut the first 

 week in September, and it was roughly calculated by my 

 iuformantsj the owners, that about two mauuds had been 

 shaken out by the wind and lost. , 



Here is the produce of a piece of sugar-cane on four 

 cottas of garden laud ; or, length, 35 ft. ; breadth, 25 ft. 

 There were nine rows: — 



1st row , 51 



2nd „ 77 



3rd 

 4th 

 5th 

 6th 

 7tl. 

 8th 

 9th 



73 

 91 



87 

 89 

 S3 

 74 



697 



