EXTEKNAL OKGANISATION 129 



man himself; otherwise they would rapidly eat him 

 out of house and home. To show that this picture 

 is not exaggerated it is only necessary to make out a 

 rough profit and loss account for the agriculture of 

 any Deccan village, and it will be seen that the cost of 

 maintaining the plough bullocks amounts to the value 

 of about one- third of the gross produce of the fields, 

 and that too in spite of the fact that most of the 

 cultivators declare that they have not got sufficient 

 bullocks to till their fields properly, that many of 

 them make a practice of selling off their bullocks at a 

 ruinous loss at the end of each cultivating season, and 

 that some, who own no bullocks at all, contemplate 

 nothing but the most rudimentary tillage operations, 

 and trust to hiring or borrowing the bullocks neces- 

 sary for this purpose. 



The external organisation of the farmer is hardly 

 less important than the internal organisation of the 

 farm. How can he purchase his necessities and 

 market his produce to the best advantage ? His de- 

 mands on the outside world are few and far between, 

 bat such as they are, they have to be supplied. At the 

 least, he needs the implements of tillage, some con- 

 centrated manure for irrigated fields, good seed and 

 efficient milk and draught animals ; and he often re- 

 quires an advance to finance such purchases. With 

 good security to offer he can usually obtain a loan 

 from the village money-lender at an interest of 15 per 

 cent, and upwards, but agencies for supplying the 

 articles themselves are very defective; indeed it is 



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