626 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



The duties of the provincial departments include the keeping- of land 

 records, which requires the collection and examination of agricultural 

 statistics for each village and district, as a basis for the assessment 

 and collection of revenues levied upon land. These departments also 

 have important duties in connection with the famine relief, including 

 furnishing- the administration with the fullest information regarding 

 the condition of every agricultural section and its people, and in sea- 

 sons of scarcity they carry their inquiries to every village and assist 

 in the actual work of relief. 



The provincial departments of agriculture also include a veterinary 

 branch, which consists of one or more qualified officers with European 

 degrees in veterinary science, and a large native staff of veterinary 

 inspectors and assistants. The principal duties are the investigation, 

 control, and treatment of cattle diseases, and the improvement of the 

 breeds of cattle. There are numerous veterinary dispensaries in the 

 towns, and much work is done in the villages. There are also veteri- 

 nary colleges at Lahore, Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, and schools 

 in some other provinces. 



Although this provincial veterinary work is under the control of 

 the local directors of agriculture, the imperial branch of the civil vet- 

 erinan T department is separate from the department of agriculture, 

 being managed by an inspector-general. Similarly, the great irriga- 

 tion works of the government, which are on the largest scale to be 

 found in any country, are managed independently of the imperial 

 department of agriculture, being a branch of the public works depart- 

 ment; and the forestry interests are in charge of the forest department. 

 There are also imperial and provincial departments of meteorology, 

 which maintain weather stations for record and prediction, and a 

 botanical survey of India has been in progress for many years. So 

 that all told the field is quite fully covered in organization. 



In recent }^ears both the imperial and provincial departments have 

 made rapid progress in the direction of the improvement of agricul- 

 ture by means of investigations and experiment. In 1903 the govern- 

 ment of India sanctioned the establishment of an imperial agricultural 

 research station, which is located at Pusa in Behar, the most thickty 

 populated agricultural tract of the Bengal Presidency. The station 

 has fully equipped laboratories for research work, and stands at the 

 head of the India s} T stem of experiment stations and farms. With it 

 is connected a higher agricultural college, an experimental farm, and 

 a cattle breeding farm. The institute is located on a government 

 estate of 1,358 acres, and the buildings now in progress will cost con- 

 siderably over a half-million dollars, toward which has been applied a 

 portion of the donation of 1150,000 made by Mr. Henry Phipps, of 

 this country, to which reference has previously been made. The 

 organization of this staff, composed of European specialists with native 

 assistants, has now been completed. 



