CHAPTER V 



HOW THE FARM STARTED 



In going into these mud villages one not only learned 

 that India was poor beyond compare, "cabined, cribbed, 

 confined" by caste, and illiterate to an appalling ex- 

 tent ; but also that India was a land where one occupa- 

 tion overshadowed all others. That occupation was 

 farming. The census figures give sixty-five per cent, 

 engaged in agriculture proper, and fifteen per cent, in 

 looking after cattle, working in forests or in working as 

 casual landless laborers on the farms of India. Thus 

 eighty per cent, of the population of India gets its living 

 from the soil. India will remain predominately agri- 

 cultural largely because of the climate. 



For the four months from November to March North- 

 ern India where Allahabad is located has a delightful 

 climate, sunny days, starlit nights, little or no rain, the 

 thermometer occasionally registering frost at night and 

 rarely rising beyond 90 F. at noon. This is the season 

 when there is a riot of flowers ; roses, violets, heliotrope, 

 chrysanthemums, pansies, oleanders, poinsettias and 

 many others add color and odor that enrapture the lover 

 of a good garden. The best American vegetable seeds 

 give results of a kind that is rarely attained in America. 

 March is a month of transition. In April the weather 



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