FODDER IN INDIA. 



the depot becomes known as a market for the disposal of 

 fodder where a fair rate and immediate payment can be 

 obtained ; besides many of the encamping grounds can easily 

 be brought under grass cultivation. 



CHAPTER II. 



In establishing a farm a smaller area of good land is 

 preferable to a large area of poor land, 

 but in using the expression ' poor,' land °^**''"^p^^* '^'^^^ 

 which is capable of considerable im- 

 provement is not implied, but rather usar, p(iror, and 

 mattiyar lands which are hardly reclaimable or insufficiently 

 so to make it worth while. Always be on tlje look-out and 

 prowl in your own district and try to snap up any bit of 

 land at all possible, if it is not to be bought get the longest 

 possible lease with hopes of a renewal ; but do your prowling 

 quietly, keep your mouth shut and your ears wide open ; 

 do your acquiring gradually and on strictly economic lines ; 

 don't take up more land than you can satisfactorily work. In 



few places, if any, are the grass farm 



, , ~. . , . , Arrangements for 



lands sumciently extensive to produce supplementary 

 all that is necessary for requirements, ^°<^'*«'" 

 not to mention the necessary reserve, which necessitates the 

 procedure of leasing and purchase as recounted in the fore- 

 g^oing chapter. Other things being equal, the nearer farm 

 lands are to cantonments and regimental lines the better, at' 

 the same time for manuring purposes, and certain forms of 

 cultivation you will have a freer hand the further away from 

 regimental lines. It is often indeed quite an advantage to 

 have your land outside cantonment boundaries and the scope 

 of sanitary authorities altogether. Land up to 10-12 miles 

 distant if worth anything should certainly be taken up for 

 cultivation of either grass or crops, and for rukh and forest 

 lands up to 50 miles is no too far, and further if on or near the 

 railway. Grazing lands are usually preferable to cultivated 



