54 



soil is being exhausted by native practices. He quotes from 

 the report of Mr. Chisholm, the Settlement officer of Bilsapur, 

 the following remarks as to how the outturn is affected by 

 the continuous cropping of irrigated lands. '' When fresh soil 

 is broken up for rice cultivation, the ground can never be 

 got into proper order during the first year, and the yield is 

 less than in the old fields. In the second year the outturn 

 rises about one- eighth above that of the old fields and increases 

 gradually year by year until the fifth, when it reaches 50 per 

 cent, above the old fields. It then commences to decline, and 

 in about another five years has subsided to the level of the 

 old fields, and at that level it remains unchanged for ever. 

 Many fields for instance are believed to have been continu- 

 ously cultivated for 150 years" and more, and yet they are 

 in no way inferior to land reclaimed from the jungle but 15 

 years ago." Professor Wallace -^ goes on to remark that 5 lb. of 

 nitrogen is required for an acre, combined by electric action. 

 Thunderstorms being common during the south-west monsoon 

 months, India has a natural advantage over the British and 

 American wheat growers, whose supply of nitrogen is, in a 

 great measure, drawn from vegetable accamulations in a virgin 

 soil, which is, in consequence of a system of close cropping, be- 

 coming exhausted. More recently, Dr. Voelcker has expressed 

 an opinion to a similar effect. He states : '^ the possibility of 

 soil exhaustion going on (in India) can only be determined 

 by a careful study of what is removed from the land, and how 

 far this is replaced by the forces of nature and by the 

 artificial nourishment of manuring. I have mentioned the 

 deficiency of nitrogen which I observed in the case of several 

 Indian soils, but it is worthy of note too, how very large a 

 proportion of the crops annually grown, also of the trees and 

 shrubs and even of the weeds, are leguminous in character, and 



-■' In an inscription {vide appendix I.-D.) recording a grant to a Jain temple at Nega- 

 patam by Kulottungachola (A.D- 1084) the produce of certain villages which can now be 

 identified is given. Comparing the present outturn with the rates given in the inscrip- 

 tion, it is found that on the whole the produce has increased and not diminished. There 

 is a popular impression in the Ciodavari district that the construction of anicuts and locks 

 has diminished the quantity of silt deposited on lands under irrigation. I have also 

 heard a story — apocryphal, no doubt, but still significant. It appears that an astute 

 Tan j ore Mirassidar paid a handsome bribe to the subordinate ofiicers of the Public 

 Works Department, to be allowed to breach the bank of a river when in full flood and 

 that though he got no produce from his lands the first year, he made a great profit 

 in subsequent years. This, of course, is a very dangerous way of manuring lands. The 

 inundations of the Nile fertilize the lands subject to them, but they often do as much 

 harm as good. 



-^ The question is entirely a scientific one and is at present in an experimental stage. 

 Recent investigations, it is stated, with certain kinds of legimiinous plants, have shown 

 that they derive their nitrogen from the atmosphere and enrich the soil in whicl! they are 

 grown — Vide Journal of the Ro>ial AgricuUnral Societij for December 1891. 



