54 
and of the specialist staff. He has as second in 
command, an agricultural specialist with the title of 
Deputy Director of Agriculture, on whom must actually, 
though not nominally, fall the real initiative and control 
of the Department. The system can only be justified, 
or rather excused, by the real difficulty of finding trained 
agricultural officers with those other qualifications which 
are essential in the head of a Government Department 
in India, and by the circumstance that besides technical 
agriculture there are usually involved in the work of the 
Department purely administrative and legal questions 
relating to land, with which an Indian civilian is best 
qualified to deal. I have been in touch with this 
system for a number of years, and during a recent visit 
to India I have had further opportunities of studying it. 
It must be admitted that occasionally an Indian 
civilian has taken great interest in agricultural work 
and has made himself an efficient and sympathetic head 
of the Department. In general, however, the plan has 
many drawbacks, and so long as it is adopted the best 
men will not be attracted to the Indian Agricultural 
Service in spite of the pecuniary advantages which it 
offers as compared with the Agricultural Service of the 
British tropical colonies. I am informed that it is 
possible for a Deputy Director of Agriculture in India 
to become the Head of the Department. I am, how- 
ever, not aware of any instance in which this has 
actually happened, although the Deputy Director may 
act as the head of the Department in the temporary 
absence of the Director. So far as I am aware an 
actual vacancy is generally, if not invariably, filled by 
the appointment of a member of the Indian Civil 
Service. 
Admitting the difficulties at the present time which 
stand in the way of the creation of self-contained 
Agricultural Departments in India, I venture to think 
that some change is now called for in the existing plan. 
If it is considered impossible to form a separate De- 
partment for dealing with administrative and legal 
questions connected with land tenure, I am inclined to 
suggest that an alternative might be found in the forma- 
tion in each Province of a small Board of Agriculture, 
composed of official and non-official members, of which 
