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taking as much from the land as we can, consistently 

 with not injuring the capital value of our property. 

 Like all great works, the workmanship varies some- 

 what in quality, and it is only in human nature to err 

 at times. Districts, both somewhat under and some- 

 what over assessed, might easily be indicated, but 

 taking a wide purview no competent authority can 

 deny that, conditioned as it is by the irrevocable 

 acts of the past, the land revenue administration is, 

 on the whole, making as much out of the land as it 

 can fairly be expected, as now worked, to yield to 

 Government. 



If, then, our revenue from land is to undergo any 

 very marked development, and to bear hereafter that 

 proportion to the rest of our revenues that in the 

 times gone by it has always borne, it is to an increase 

 in the produce of the land, to an. improved system of 

 agriculture in fact, that we must look. 



And here it is due to the patient, frugal, and not 

 unintelligent husbandmen of India to admit freely 

 that, looking to the conditions under which they 

 labour, their ignorance of scientific method, and their 

 want of capital (and all that capital enables a farmer 

 to command), the crops that they do produce are, on 

 the whole, surprising. 



So far as rule-of-thumb goes, the experience of 

 3,000 years has not been wholly wasted. They know 

 to a day when it is best (if only meteorological condi- 

 tions permit) to sow each staple and each variety of 

 each staple that is grown in their neighbourhood; 

 they know the evils of banks and hedges, dwarfing 

 the crops on either side and harbouring vermin, and 



