572 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



pins, each G inclies long, one on eacli side the neck of tlie bullocks. A 

 small hemp rope or grass twine goes nnder the bullocks' necks to keep 

 the yoke iu its place. The beam of the plow has a few notches under 

 it near the end, and is fastened to the yoke by a small grass rope or 

 twine. The plow makes no furrow, but simply roots or tears up the 

 soil, and the plowman with his little goad or whip in one band, tlie 

 other holding the wooden pin in the upright stalk, walks by the side of 

 the plow. The cattle are of the Brahmini species, white, slender-bodied, 

 long-legged, and about one-half or one-third the weight of oxen in the 

 United States, and very lean, as about the only feed they get for months 

 before the rains and during the plowing season is bhoosa, or wheat 

 straw and chaff. To see a man weighing less than 100 ponufls 

 with only a strii) of cloth around his loins and a like strip about liis head, 

 driving a little pair of lean cattle, swinging his wbip and dodging from 

 side to side of his plow, and calling his bulls by the endearing name of 

 " my daughters," is quite a sight, especially when first observed by an 

 American farmer. Plowing is hard work, both for the little cattle and 

 the man himself, particularly if the ground is hard and baked, and 

 if it is the first plowing. The best a plowman can do is to tear up 

 three-quarters of an acre a day, and the work is poorly done. The land 

 has to be plowed in this way a number of times, especially for the more 

 substantial crops. The cattle cost from $5 to $20 a pair, but the average 

 price of these working cattle in these provinces is about $8 a i^air. The 

 average cost of a plow is 40 cents. The only other implement used is 

 a log or slab of wood, or 8 feet long, drawn sideways across the field by 

 one or two pair of cattle to crush the clods and smooth the surface. 

 After the land is pulverized, and it is finally well done, too, the last 

 plowing takes place, when a man or woman dribbles the seed from the 

 hand into the furrow or mark after the plow. 



EEAPINa AND THRASHING. 



The reaper consists of a blade of iron G inches in length, 1 inch iu width, 

 and curved like an old-fashioned sickle, with a notched edge and a short 

 handle. The cost of this instrument is 4 cents. The harvester sits upon 

 his heels, cuts a handful of straw, which he lays down, then waddles on 

 without rising, cutting about one-twelfth of an acre a day, for which he 

 receives 5 cents, boarding himself. After this reaping-machine comes 

 a binder, who gathers up the grain and binds it into sheaves about the 

 size of the American sheaf. It is then shocked, and after a day or two 

 carted to the thrashing-floor. 

 The thrashing-machine consists of a floor — a bit of hard ground — a 

 stake, a number of cattle, and a driver. The grain straw is piled around 

 the stake in the floor, the cattle are connected by a rope tied to their 

 horns and one end of the rope fastened to the stake, and the driver 

 keeps them going until the straw is tramped very fine into what is called 

 " bhoosa." This, after the grain is separated from it, is fed to the cattle. 

 The people raise almost insurmountable objection to any other mode of 

 thrashing, as this is about the only way in which the straw is made into 

 bhoosa. They do not only thrash to get out the grain but to break up 

 the straw, and particularly to flatten it, so that the cattle will readily 

 eat it. Mr. Ozaune, superintendent of agriculture in the Bombay presi- 

 dency, had a large thrashing-machine sent from England, and made a 

 contract with a landholder for 50 acres of wheat in order to try the ma- 

 chine. After the work had commenced the landholder fell upon his 

 knees and piteously begged for the thrashing to stop, as it would ruin 

 him, for the cattle would not eat the straw. A straw-cutter to cut up . 

 the straw will not do, as they hold that it must be flattened and made 



