MANUKE 95 



fall between seed-time and harvest. This practice 

 and the interculturing methods referred to above are 

 based on dry-farming principles. The best cultivators 

 make about as good a job of it as is possible with the 

 implements at their disposal and with the conditions 

 under which they work. It is not with regard to 

 tillage only that this is true, but with regard to sowing 

 and spacing the good Gujarati cultivator will get an 

 almost ideal stand of crop by straight and thick sowing 

 followed by careful thinning out. In many other 

 tracts the reverse is the rule, and the crop will be 

 found overcrowded in one place and very sparse in 

 another, to such an extent that it is not uncommon 

 to see a quarter of the field left blank owing to de- 

 fective sowing. 



On irrigated lands cultivation is a much more 

 exacting problem than on dry lands. For many soils 

 light irrigations, combined with the ridge and furrow 

 system, will give good results, whereas the heavy 

 surface flooding which is practised gives poor crops 

 and ruins the texture of the soil. The cultivators of 

 the canal tracts have much to learn in this respect. 



To turn now to the important question of manure. 

 The application of some kind of manure to fields in 

 annual cultivation is very generally recognised to be 

 necessary for the maintenance of the soil fertility and 

 the production of substantial crops. In many parts 

 of India, however, both the theory and the practice 

 of the cultivators with regard to manuring vary greatly 

 within a small radius. Let us take some specific cases 



