REPORT ON THE DISEASES OF SILKWORMS IN INDIA 97 



anything on such work as hybridizing. The results up to the pre- 

 sent have not justified any further expenditure until ample funds 

 are available, and besides the best hybrid would give poor results 

 if disease were still rampant and rearing bad. I am not opposed 

 to hybridization experiments, but to conduct them adequately is 

 expensive and to do such work inefficiently is futile. All available 

 money should be used to try to improve sericulture in the villages. 



I have not considered the question of legislation in connection 

 with silkworm diseases, as I do not believe that anything of value 

 could be enforced. If rearers could be obliged by law to use ex- 

 amined seed, to disinfect their houses and. adopt better rearing 

 methods the question of disease would be easily solved ; but that 

 cannot be done — it must all be left to the persuasive powers of the 

 sericultural departments. 



i Ultimately, however, we must come back to the real deter- 

 mining factor in the question of disease in silkworms — the human 

 •one. It is a question of men. I believe that the future of seri- 

 culture in a very real way lies in the hands of the officers in the 

 sericultural departments. They should be natives of the province 

 in which they work, so that they may be able to converse with the 

 ryots in their own tongue and to understand their characters, 

 customs and prejudices. They should be men of energy, common 

 sense, integrity, sympathy and understanding, rather than trained 

 scientists — there is not a great deal of science necessary for success- 

 ful sericulture ; diseases can be controlled only by persuading the 

 ryot of the error of his ways and helping him to mend them. 

 "To attain this end the officers must gain the confidence of the rearers 

 first and foremost, and to do this will demand the type of man 

 I have sketched. The success of the work will depend largely on 

 the officers. 



But the ryot will have to play his part. That the peasant of 

 India is willing to adopt new things if they afford sufficient induce- 

 ment, the substitution of the old wooden sugar mills by the newer 

 iron mills practically all over India would tend to show. But the 

 inducement must be large. Will he be ready to take more trouble, 

 to expend more energy in obtaining only small increases in his 

 gains ? Many hard things have been said about the Indian ryot 

 and his- methods, a few of which I have quoted ; I wish to cite here 

 two opinions both expressed by Indians. The first is Mukerji's : 

 " It is, however, vain to expect that silk-rearers generally will 

 abandon their present methods in preference for others more 

 rational, when they will come to understand the nature of these 



diseases Instead of asking them to alter their ways it is much 



easier to organize a method of circulation of healthy seed and 



