TILLAGE BY OXEN 127 



the fields. It would be of the greatest advantage to 

 the cultivator if he were in a position to undertake the 

 breeding and feeding of live stock on systematic lines 

 as part of his ordinary business ; but this can hardly 

 be done generally until the existing circumstances of 

 scattered holdings and congested villages are modified. 

 Meanwhile the cultivators are unable to take advan- 

 tage of what should be their principal subsidiary 

 industry, and suffer every year from long periods of 

 enforced inactivity when field work comes to an end. 

 From the point of view of organisation the size of 

 the holding is a matter of importance, especially in 

 a country where the tillage is done by bullock power 

 and not by hand. As already noted there is room for 

 much diversity of size in holdings, but for the ordin- 

 ary peasant farmer, in a country where the population 

 presses heavily on the soil, the size of an economic 

 holding is roughly limited in one direction by the 

 maximum area that a pair of bullocks can cultivate, 

 and in the other by the minimum area that can afford 

 the cost of a pair of bullocks. It is not necessary to 

 consider the upper limit, but as regards the lower 

 limit most of the holdings are too small to conform to 

 this ideal. In many parts of India the period for 

 which, under existing practices, farm work can be 

 found for the cattle is very short. Thus in the Konkan 

 the period of farm work for cattle is practically con- 

 fined to June and July, and in parts of the eastern 

 Deccan, where ploughing is hardly practised, the 

 work consists of harrowing and sowing for the rabi 



