42 THE GOSPEL AND THE PLOW 



Mr. Clouston, Director of Agriculture for the Central 

 Provinces, has isolated a high yielding local variety, 

 *'Eoseum," which gives five dollars an acre net profit 

 more than the local variety. A breed of rice has been 

 isolated for Bengal which gives twenty per cent, more 

 than the local varieties. Plant diseases have been 

 studied and in some cases remedies found. New varie- 

 ties have been introduced. Cooperative credit societies 

 for purchasing and marketing have been organized. 

 Twenty-nine thousand societies are now active. When 

 we recall that modem agricultural science is so recent in 

 America, what India has done compares very favorably 

 with what other countries have done, after due allowance 

 has been made for all the unusual difficulties of the situa- 

 tion. If there is any place for criticism of the Govern- 

 ment it is in the fact that methods were not devised and 

 staff not provided for the spreading among the Indian 

 farmers of the results of laboratory and experimental 

 research. Efforts to this end are now being put forth 

 but the area is so vast, it takes so long for a foreigner 

 trained in agriculture to get acquainted with the Indian 

 conditions; the ignorance, the suspicion, the illiteracy 

 and superstition of the Indian farmers so widespread, 

 that progress is necessarily slow. The illiterate Indian 

 farmer has for centuries been fair game for anyone to 

 exploit. It is difficult for him to believe that anyone 

 is really trying to help him. When any improvement is 

 being introduced he always imagines that some new trick 

 is being played upon him. The Government is estab- 

 lishing rural, middle and high agricultural schools but 

 is compelled to go slowly because of the dearth of prop- 

 erly qualified teachers with the right attitude towards 

 the villager. It is at this particular point that America 



