ON THE EECENT TROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE IN INDIA. 539 



agjriculfcural improvements in this country of peace and plenty, where, in 

 these days, famine never comes, and where farming is a bnsiness con- 

 ducted on business principles, not the sole means of subsistence for the 

 vast mass of the population. Tou will anticipate the general drift of my 

 remarks when I say that I agree with those who hold that we have far 

 more to learn from the Indian peasant about Indian agriculture than, 

 €ven with the resources of science at command, we are at all likely, 

 for some time to come, to be able to teach him. Reforms have been 

 attempted — the introduction of new crops, improvements in the methods 

 of cultivating the ordinary crops of the country, the adaptation of English 

 or other machinery to Indian conditions, and the breeding of cattle. 

 Anything I might tell you under these heads would be a mere repetition, 

 of what is said in Part II. of the ' Report of the Famine Commission,' 

 pp. 137-9. Of the important staples successfully introduced — viz., tea, 

 coffee, the Mauritius sugar cane, New Orleans cotton, cinchona, and 

 potatoes — it may, however, be interesting to mention, in connection with 

 British trade, the areas now cultivated with coffee and tea. The coffee 

 area has slightly contracted. It was some 121,000 acres in 1884-5, and 

 some 118,000 in 1889-90. In the same period the area under tea has 

 risen from nearly 130,000 acres to more than 250,000. In my own pro- 

 vince, the Punjab, the breed of horses has certainly been improved within 

 my recollection. For the rest, I will only say that the Indian agricul- 

 turist is well aware of the value of manure, but with reference to the 

 vast distances that have to be traversed, and to some other considerations, 

 either could not afford to buy or would be unwilling to use imported 

 manures, while he wants a great part of his farmyard manure for fuel. 

 There are many practical difficulties in the way of the employment of 

 English ploughs and of deep ploughing ; and expensive machines worked 

 by steam, which could not be mended by village blacksmiths, are out of 

 the question for peasant holders of small plots scattered in villages over 

 the face of a vast, very primitive country. The most that can be said, I 

 think, is that the Indian peasant may possibly plough deep, use more 

 manure, and abstain from drenching the soil with all the water he can 

 let on to it, when he is convinced that an alteration of practice in these 

 respects will be profitable to himself in his lifetime. We have hitherto 

 entirely failed to demonstrate to his satisfaction the pecuniary advantage 

 of a change. Our efforts, too, in technical education in agriculture have 

 not, so far, either reached or formed the practical farmer. They have 

 merely resulted in a new brood of hungry aspirants for employment as 

 officials. 



I hope that in the space I have at my disposal I have been able to 

 make it sufficiently clear that in speaking of such a primitive country as 

 India we cannot use such an expression as the development of agricul- 

 ture in quite the same sense in which we apply it to the highly cultivated 

 and civilised countries of Europe at the present day. Famine, it has 

 been well said, is one of the diseases of the infancy of nations ; and at 

 present our best efforts are needed rather to prevent or mitigate that 

 sudden and terrible deterioration of agriculture which is implied in 

 famine than to convert the empiricism of a thousand generations to 

 Western beliefs in scientific farming. I do not deny that to improve 

 agricultural methods is a part of the means of famine prevention ; but I 

 would add that another disease of the infancy of nations is chronic war. 

 To England, to this land of ours where there is indeed much poverty, 



