— 470 — 
of villages, better done in districts where the English official 
showed he meant it to be done, but done on a very large scale. 
There were sent out 80,000 copies of a circular in Punjabi and 
Hindi, explaining why this and other measures were to be carried 
out, and thus what was to be done, and the reason why was 
brought to the knowledge of the people in all the villages that 
had lost their crop of cotton. 
This gives a rough picture of the Government machinery and it 
is in an emergency an extraordinarily good machine. When the 
expert side of agriculture has been more developed, this machi- 
nery will spread the work of the expert throughout the country. 
Government in India takes note of very small things, and in every 
district a weekly report is sent in on the condition of crops, men- 
tioning among other things if there are losses from Insect-pests. 
We are now beginning to know what the Insect-pests are, and are 
slowly beginning to see how they are to be met. 
The Agricultural Department has been founded to study and 
improve the methods of Indian agriculture, to test new methods 
and introduce new crops, to adopt and teach the best methods of 
western science and, in short, to try to make two blades grow 
where one grew before. It will do this by direct teaching and 
practice, and through the medium of the district officer and the 
system of Government outlined above. It is at present a new thing 
having been founded in recent years and having only recently 
been expanded. For each province there is one or several English 
officers, trained in agriculture, who deal with general agricultural 
problems, there is also a chemist, and a botanist, both highly 
trained Englishmen, and a native staff to assist them. There is 
also a native staff to deal with entomology and mycology, under 
the direction of the botanist or some other officer. In addition, 
there is a Department under the Government of India, which 
deals less with local problems than with bigger questions best 
dealt with at one centre; and in this Department is the Entomolo- 
gical Section, which largely directs and controls the work all over 
India In this Section is done all the scientific work, the study of 
life-histories, the testing of remedies and methods; in the Provin- 
cial Departments is done the work of investigating outbreaks, 
giving advice and help on the spot and accumulating local inform- 
ation. 
For us in the beginning the first thing was to know what the pests 
were; we had the published records in Indian Museum Notes; we 
