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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE AGRICULTURE OF INDIA. 



In assuming the more immediato control of the vast 

 stretch of country now known as " British India," and 

 extending almost in one uninterrupted line from Pegu 

 in the East to Kurrachce in the West, we have under- 

 taken great responsibilities, civil and political. If 

 there have been great short-comings heretofore in 

 our government and management of the natives and 

 of the country over which we have exercised rule for 

 so long a period, there is the more reason now why our 

 best energies should be put forth to improve the condi- 

 tion of the people, and to devclope the indigenous 

 resources of the vast territories extending through every 

 climate, for which England has paid so dear. It is 

 not our province to enlarge upon the political aspect of 

 the question ; but we can at least direct attention to 

 the openings for British enterprise and the call for agri- 

 cultural improvement. The bar of exclusion, which 

 formerly shut out from India every European but the 

 covenanted servants of the East India Company, is now 

 removed, and Englishmen will be no longer restricted 

 to the cultivation of indigo and sugar, but may now, with 

 the improved tenure of land and the extended field of 

 operations open to them, turn their attention to what- 

 ever seems best calculated to be remunerative and suc- 

 cessful. A strong movement is making to people the 

 hillsides and healthy localities of India with Europeans, 

 and the extension of railways will enable operations to 

 be carried on in the plains. In the Himalaya moun- 

 tains, whose sides seem carved by Nature to an angle 

 forbidding the exertion of the farmer's art, patient per- 

 severance has triumphed over the difficulty, and the 

 natives raise crops upon the acclivities, which enable 

 them to subsist high up among the precipitous forma- 

 tions. 



But it is by the introduction of English capital, 

 English improvements and supervision, and the modern 

 scientific practices, that the largest amount of benefit 

 will accrue to India, and which must necessarily react 

 on the mother-country. 



Already we are largely indebted to India for rice, 

 for fibres, for oil seeds, for cotton, for wool, and various 

 other stajjle products raised in considerable quantities. 

 But its indigenous resources arc immense, and by the 

 petty and ill-directed exertions of the natives have 

 never been properly developed. If we have received, 

 however, for many years these important supplies, and 

 have also drawn from thence many now products for 

 our fields, forests, and gardens, we may at least give 

 something in return by our skill and energy in intro- 

 ducing new plants and improving the old-fashioned 

 systcma in operation. We have introduced from India 

 many valuable coniferous trees, of which wo might 

 enumerate a dozen or two, including the Deodar, the 

 Pinus excelsa, &c. Several of our cereals also have 

 been drawn from the East, including the Bengal barley 

 and the Nepaul barley; the latter in 1817, from the 



Himalaya mountains, where it grew near the line of 

 perpetual snow. 



Improved internal communication, a better land 

 tenure, public works for irrigation, and moderate taxa- 

 tion will greatly benefit our Indian territories. The 

 result of railway traffic among the natives has already 

 far surpassed the expectations formed, and the third- 

 class carriages are freely used by the Indians on all the 

 existing lines; and these will do much to improve 

 agriculture in the interior. Fruit and vegetables are 

 even now cultivated as far as Burdwan, or 100 to 150 

 miles, for the Calcutta market. And cattle, sheep, 

 fodder, root crops, &c., will all ere long be brought into 

 the Presidency towns from the hills and interior dis- 

 tricts. 



One great obstacle to the employment of manures in 

 the East is the prejudice entertained by the natives 

 against meddling with ordure or excrementitious 

 matters; and yet they sedulously collect and dry the 

 cow-dung for fuel, and shape it into toys. The manure 

 has to be applied by baskets — a tedious and expensive 

 process, which a few carts would obviate. In 

 India, the season of vegetation continuing throughout 

 the year, the land might be occupied with an unin- 

 terrupted succession of crops. 



No branch of Indian agriculture deserves more at- 

 tention, or has obtained less, than that which embraces 

 the cultivation of the grasses. Whether it will receive 

 greater attention, now that British colonization may be 

 expected to spread over the temperate parts of India, 

 remains to be seen. So innutritions are the ordinary 

 grasses of Hindostan, that hay has to be brought from 

 other provinces ; and the roots of the finer grasses are 

 collected for saddle horses. Stock are, for the most 

 part, fattened upon dry food, and grain twice a-day. 

 The most common and useful grass in India is the doob 

 grass, the creeping dog's tooth (Cynodon dactylon of 

 Sinclair), which furnishes three-fourths of the food for 

 the horses and cows. The country is by no means 

 destitute of natm'al grasses, though it cannot compare 

 in the abundance of this produce with milder climes ; 

 for Dr. lloxbrough enumerated nearlj^ 250 species as 

 indigenous to the country, some of which, if the seeds 

 were collected and sown on any moderately friable and 

 fertile soil, would make a good pasture. Lucerne 

 (Trifolium incarnatum), clover, rye-grass, and spring 

 tares, would all probably succeed in India. The 

 seeds of many of the superior grasses might also be 

 obtained from the Cape of Good Hope, and others 

 with but little trouble from England. There is no 

 doubt some of our very best pasture gi-asses could 

 be successfully introduced in India, if part of their 

 cultivation comprised a judicious system of irrigation. 

 A better sui)ply of green fodder would not only prevent 

 the occurrence of the sweeping mortality which so fre- 

 quently visits the cattle during the hot season, but 



