299 



modifiable by human action than the latter ; and, secondly, 

 that the breeding and fattening of cattle in England for 

 meat make it remunerative to retain the greater portion 

 of cultivable lands for purposes of pasture, thereby con- 

 tracting the area available for being put under corn crops, 

 providing cattle manure for these crops, and enabling the 

 farmer to diversify corn crops with restorative crops which are 

 useful as food for cattle — conditions favorable to intensive 

 farming whicb, owing to the poverty of the cultivators and re- 

 ligious prohibition as regards the consumption of cattle meat, 

 are absent in this country. ^'^^ Hitherto the increased pro- 

 duction required to meet increase of population has been met 

 by extension of cultivation of lands of all except the poorest 

 descriptions, by the extension of large irrigation works con- 

 structed by Government and of small works, such as wells, 

 constructed by the ryots themselves, and by the stimulua 

 given to production in backward and hitherto inaccessible 

 tracts by the extension of communication and the cheapening 

 of the cost of carriage. As these resources are becoming, to a 

 great extent, exhausted, the two dangers now apprehended 

 are first, the necessity to bring under cultivation the poorer 

 classes of soil peculiarly liable to the effects of droughts, and 

 secondly, the impoverishment of the soil, owing to the grow- 

 ing exports of agricultural produce — -chiefly oil-seeds. The 

 first danger is, to some extent, guarded against by imposing 

 pretty high assessments on lands of the lowest classes and 

 by enclosing poor soils for fuel and fodder reserves and thus 

 preventing their being taken up for cultivation. These mea- 

 sures have, however, to be adopted very cautiously to prevent 

 hardship to the agricultural classes by unduly enhancing the 

 assessment of holdings containing poor lands and by depriving 

 them of grazing grounds for cattle. As regards deterioration 

 of the soil, the opinions of scientific experts who have examined 



^" I have in my reply to the article in the Calcutta Review, extracts from which 

 axe printed as appendix VI. ~D. (1), alluded briefly to the circumstances which favored the 

 consolidation and enclosure of farms and the adoption of intensive farming in England. 

 Sometimes violent measures are suggested with a view to bring about consolidation 

 of farms and improved cultivation, but all such measures are calculated to strike at 

 the I'oot of security of property which is the first condition of agricultural improve- 

 ment, unless the Government itself undertakes the functions of a landlord — functiona 

 which it can never properly discharge. With reference to a similar proposal, Mr. Thorold 

 Rogers puts the evils of State landlordism in a clear light : " The cultivator of the soil 

 would have exchanged a landlord, who is, after all, a human being, with sympathy and 

 consideration, at least at times, with some desire to live at peace and good-wiU among' 

 his neighbours, for a Government oflBce the servants of which, by a very natural im- 

 pulse, would manipulate the whole estate by a set of hard inelastic rules. They would, 

 by the very nature of their duties, be unaffected by all sympathetic influences. 

 Their first object,would be to earn the interest on the piirchase-money, and to insist on 

 its punctual payment, come what would. The business of the oflice would be enormous 

 and prodigiously costly." 



