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shame ninety-nine hundredths of those in Europe. 

 You may stand on some high old barrow-like village 

 site in Upper India, and look down on all sides on one 

 wide sea of waving wheat broken only by dark-green 

 islands of mango groves — many, many square miles of 

 wheat and not a weed or blade of grass above six 

 inches in height to be found amongst it. What is to 

 be spied out creeping here and there on the ground is 

 only the growth of the last few weeks, since the corn 

 grew too high and thick to permit the women and 

 children to continue weeding. They know when to 

 feed down a too forward crop ; they know the benej&t 

 of, and practise, so far as circumstances and poverty 

 permit, a rotation of crops. They are great adepts in 

 storing grain, and will turn it out of rough earthen 

 pits, after twenty years, absolutely uninjured. They 

 know the exact state of ripeness to which grain should 

 be allowed to stand in different seasons; in other 

 words, under different meteorological conditions, to 

 ensure its keeping when thus stored ; and equally the 

 length of time that, under varying atmospheric con- 

 ditions, it should lie upon the open threshing-floor to 

 secure the same object. 



Imperfect appliances, superstition, money troubles, 

 and the usurer's impatience, often prevent their prac- 

 tising what they do know, but so far as what may be 

 called non- scientific agriculture is concerned, there is 

 little to teach them, and certainly very few European 

 farmers could, fettered by the same conditions as our 

 ryots, produce better, if as good, crops. 



On the other hand, we must not over-rate their 

 knowledge ; it is wholly empirical, and is in many 



