102 TECHNIQUE 



the difficult- problem of cattle in India which is dealt 

 with in Chapter VI. and with the organisation of the 

 farmer which is considered in Chapter VII. It is 

 only necessary here to emphasise the great importance 

 of increasing the supply of farm-yard manure, upon 

 which, in existing circumstances, the soil fertility must 

 mainly depend for many years to come. 



In the matter of seed it may be stated that the 

 better class of cultivators adopt a system of mass selec- 

 tion which is fairly satisfactory, and the fact that the 

 smaller cultivators take little trouble in this respect is 

 due to their circumstances rather than to their lack of 

 knowledge. The ordinary food grains of the country 

 have been selected in the course of centuries as suit- 

 able to the tracts in which they grow, and the varieties 

 change from one tract to another as the physical con- 

 ditions change. On the whole the adaptation of the 

 crops to the physical conditions is admirable, and the 

 seed supply is in general found to have a better 

 germinating capacity * than might have been ex- 

 pected, and to be distinctly good except in the case 

 of certain pulses. It is generally recognised nowa- 

 days that the possibilities of pure-line selection and 

 hybridisation are almost unlimited, and in such 

 matters a vast field of work lies before the investigator; 

 but even in this matter progress has been made, and 

 fixed types of cottons have been evolved for five 

 different tracts in the Bombay Presidency which give 



* Vide Bulletins, Nos. 37, 43, 49, 50 and 55 of the Bombay 

 Agricultural Department. 



