CH. II] RELATIONS OF PEASANT TO LAND AND CROPS 151 



above indicated, that progress in cultivation of crops for market 

 is desirable of encouragement among the villagers, then it is 

 important that they be broken into groups, each more or less 

 of one race, having among them larger agricultural enterprises, 

 better educated agriculturists, and the traders whose presence 

 is involved by that of the larger enterprises. The small 

 peasant cultivator, unstimulated by the presence of any other 

 type of worker, and without the example offered by a larger 

 and better managed agricultural enterprise, will progress, if at 

 all, with the utmost slowness. But though very conservative, 

 he is not quite blind to his own interests, nor unwilling to 

 improve his methods to make more profit or to save labour, 

 but he will not do this on mere hearsay; he wants concrete 

 examples near his own door. 



Mixing, such as is here suggested, of races of men and types 

 of agriculture will also have a tendency to raise the general 

 standard of living in the country, and thus to create a larger 

 local market for produce. It is practically idle to expect the 

 poor villager to grow crops for which he cannot obtain an 

 immediate market in his own district (as will be more fully 

 dealt with below). If he is to progress in agricultural enter- 

 prise, he must be tempted into it by finding that it is profitable, 

 with immediate returns, or else he will (if progressive) go to 

 other occupations which hold out greater attractions in pay or 

 in type of work, and abandon his fields. The only alternative 

 is force, which was formerly fairly commonly employed in 

 dealing with " native " agriculturists, but which is now nearly 

 obsolete, surviving only in the treatment of dangerous diseases. 

 Even in Java the old " culture system " is extinct. No experi- 

 ment in the promotion of agriculture among Asiatic natives 

 has attracted so much attention as this famous system, intro- 

 duced in 1830 by Van den Bosch, then Governor-General of 

 the Netherlands Indies. Though in many ways it was or 

 became harsh and oppressive, it seems certain that it has had 

 a considerable share in rendering Java such a nation of in- 

 dustrious and comparatively skilled cultivators as it now is. 

 But the effects of dense and rapidly increasing population, 

 of the opening up of the country by a splendid system of 



