HOW THE FARM STARTED 57 



and the produce is gathered or reaped from October to 

 May. So wherever there is irrigation there can be a 

 very fair distribution of agricultural labor over the 

 whole year. In spite of the great variety of staple 

 crops the yields per acre and per man in India are lower 

 than in any other civilized country. Rothampstead in 

 England is the mother of agricultural experiment sta- 

 tions. On one plot for over seventy years without 

 manure wheat has been grown continually year after 

 year. The average yield per acre of wheat for the whole 

 of India is less than the famous unmanured plot, wheat 

 after wheat, at Rothampstead. On comparing the large 

 and profitable yields of crops in the jail with the piti- 

 fully small yields of the villagers' plots, I approached 

 certain government officials and missionary bodies and 

 said: "In view of the present condition in India and 

 the great need for more food and education, surely, if 

 Government and missions are justified in carrying on 

 any kind of education, they are justified in establishing 

 that kind of education which most directly meets the 

 needs of the great majority of the people of India." 

 For a time no one would pay any attention, but I still 

 continued to gather facts and figures and to present 

 them to my friends. Every kind of objection was urged 

 in favor of the status quo ; the fact that Indian civiliza- 

 tion was already old when our own ancestors were still 

 barbaric savages ; the fact that every possible or conceiv- 

 able contingency in the Indian agricultural year was 

 treated of in a beautiful rhyming Sanskrit couplet did 

 not impress me, when I compared the poor Indian 

 villager who seldom had enough to eat and the people of 

 my own country, who, lacking the ancient civilization 

 and the Sanskrit couplets, still had enough and to spare. 



