PREFACE. 



The publication of the Sibpur Lectures in the 

 form of a Hand-book was found necessary owing to the 

 want of a text-book on the whole subject of Indian 

 agriculture suitable for the use of advanced students. 

 It is not possible to learn agriculture from a text-book, 

 apart from a farm, and to learn the subject in a 

 systematic manner, a museum and a laboratory, are 

 also necessary. Even one passing out of an agricul- 

 tural college which is equipped with a farm, laboratory 

 and museum, and possessing a thorough knowledge of 

 a text-book, must be prepared to buy his experience, 

 either by apprenticeship in another person's farm, or 

 by losing money on his own, for a year or two, before 

 he can expect to acquire confidence in himself, his 

 crops and his methods. Book-knowledge and Col- 

 lege-education must be supplemented by detailed ex- 

 perience in that particular department of agriculture 

 which one chooses to take up, in any particular locality, 

 before one can expect to be a successful farmer. 

 A book, however, is a valuable aid to the student and 

 also to the man engaged in planting or farming. 



The Hand-book of Indian Agriculture pretends to 

 little originality. Facts which now lie scattered in 

 hundreds of Reports, Notes, Monographs, Ledgers 

 and Journals, have been brought together here in one 

 volume and treated in a systematic manner. But even 



