154 HAPPY INDIA 



be required to convey coal to the neighbourhood 

 of the cultivators in districts where at the present 

 time no railway is near. These two projects would 

 undoubtedly involve a considerable capital outlay, 

 but the other method suggested of supplying fuel to 

 the cultivators, that is of making plantations in the 

 vicinity of their villages, does not involve any large 

 capital outlay, because although in course of years 

 the amount expended on these plantations would 

 amount to a large figure, it would not be a large 

 figure at the beginning. If 1,000,000 was spent 

 in the first year, that would probably be as much as 

 could be wisely spent in that year with the organisa- 

 tion at present ready for the purpose, and as the work 

 proceeded and the wood grew up there would come 

 repayment of the expense by those who used the 

 fuel in substitution for manure, under the scheme 

 suggested by which they should pay the value of 

 part (say half) of the improvement in their crops 

 resulting from the use upon their land of cattle-dung, 

 which now they burn ; so that while the payment 

 would not be a charge upon the cultivators, it would 

 repay the outlay on the plantation. There need 

 be no hesitation in beginning this work, which for 

 the last sixty years has been recommended by a 

 great number of eminent men who have visited 

 India or lived there. Also with regard to the supply 

 of artificial manures such as phosphate of lime, that 

 does not involve a large capital outlay, because at 

 the beginning the introduction of these manures 

 will necessarily be slow, and it will have to be done 



