CHAPTER IV 



THE CROPS AND METHODS OF PEASANT AGRICUL- 

 TURE, AND THEIR POSSIBILITIES OF IMPROVEMENT 



WE must now pass on to consider village agriculture proper, 

 its crops and methods, and their possibilities of improvement. 

 Without the provision of capital there is little possibility in 

 this direction ; the villager cannot afford to try experiments, 

 nor even to adopt an improved crop or method, if any monetary 

 outlay is required. Though he may know that an expenditure 

 of a penny will bring a shilling, he must first have the penny. 

 Experimental Gardens and other similar methods of work for 

 improvement of agriculture and horticulture can do little or 

 nothing for the poorer villager until this primary difficulty is 

 got over. They may introduce or breed much better varieties 

 of plants than those the local people use, but the latter cannot 

 afford to buy them. If the Government give them freely they 

 seem to be undervalued. A common experience in the East is 

 to give good seed to a villager and then to find that he has 

 eaten it in his curry or sown it somewhere that it has no 

 chance of success. 



One great mistake that is often made in endeavouring to 

 introduce improvement in agricultural crops or methods is 

 trying to go too fast. Evolution works by almost indefinitely 

 small steps. Agriculturists, especially natives of the tropics, 

 are about the most conservative of mankind. Great harm has 

 been done to the cause of true scientific progress by enthusiasts 

 anxious to go rapidly, forgetting that the gap between the 

 native and the European is to be measured in centuries. 

 Similar unsound ideas have been at the root of the ruin of 



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