191 6. j The Third Indian Science Congress. cv 



The Re-alignment of Agricultural Holdings l .—By B. C. Burt. 



It was pointed out that from time to time attention has been drawn 

 to the waste of water which the present haphazard system of village 

 holdings causes, but that the larger aspect of the question of the neces- 

 sity for re-striping the holdings has been less considered. While action 

 has been taken on the great new canal systems in the Punjab to avoid 

 small scattered holdings and irregular fields and certain executive action 

 has been taken in the Poona district of the Bombay Presidency to square 

 up the fields on the small, but important, canals used chiefly for sugar- 

 cane irrigation, little general action has been taken to remedy the present 

 unsatisfactory position. The obstacles presented by existing systems of 

 land tenure — no less than by village custom — were pointed out, but it was 

 shown that economic benefits to be derived from the re-striping were such 

 as to justify the necessary measures. It was shown that the greatest 

 disadvantage of the present system is that it prevents any tract of land 

 from being treated as a whole or general measures taken for its improve- 

 ment, and that until radical measures are taken to re-align holdings, 

 much waste of valuable irrigation water, manure and labour must take 

 place. It was also shown that the present small scattered holdings 

 present a serious obstacle to the correct cultivation of the land. Nowhere 

 is the necessity for the re-striping of holdings more clearly seen than in 

 the problems of checking erosion and effecting adequate drainage, which 

 is so important in the plains of India if the land is to give its maximum 

 yield. It was suggested that as drastic legislation will be necessary to 

 permit of the re- striping of holdings, it is necessary to educate public 

 opinion first and it was suggested that the first step would be the acquisi- 

 tion of a few villages in different parts of the province, where the 

 necessary improvements would-be carried out, after which the new 

 holdings would be re-let to the original tenants. It is considered that an 

 object lesson of this kind would soon convince the land-owning classes of 

 the need for general measures and, pending legislation, some might be 

 able to assist in carrying out partial schemes on their own estates. 



Milk Standards of the United Provinces l . — By P. S. 



MacMahon and P. C. Mukerji. 



Contains the results of over one thousand analyses carried out in 

 1914 of the milk of a number of cows and buffaloes from the Government 

 Military Dairy, Lucknow. 



The Necessity of New Butyro-Refractometric Standards.— By 



P. S. MacMahon and B. M. Gupta. 



The paper shows that the value 54*0 used in Europe to discriminate 

 preliminarily between genuine and ad ulte rated samples of butter is too 

 high for Indian ghee. 



Section of Botany. 



[Chairman.— Dt. Albert Howard, C. I.E., Imperial Economic 



Botanist, Pusa.) 



1 This paper will be published in extenso in the Congress number of 

 the Agricultural Journal of India. 



