28 



Grass Growing in India. 



Voelcker* records an instance of the greatest care in grass growing in 

 India, at Nadiad, in Gujarat (Bombay), where the cultivators do not use 

 the village common land for their cattle. " Every one of their fields," 

 he says, u is enclosed with a hedge, and then comes a headland of grass 

 from 15 to 20 feet wide all round the field, and producing capital 

 grass. There is a double object in this practice, for, as the fields are 

 hedged, and have trees round them for supplying firewood and wood 

 for implements, the people know quite well that crops will not grow 

 when thus shaded, but that grass will. They obtain four or five 

 cuttings of grass in the year as food for their cattle, and when the 

 fields are empty the cattle are let in to graze on them. . . . Dub 

 giass (Cynodon Doctylon ) as a crop for irrigation gives a great yield, 

 and is about the only grass that keeps green in the hot weather. At 

 Belgaum, fields are grown with grass ; two cuttings are obtained" 

 yearly, and 6 annas is the sum paid for 100 lbs. of green grass. No 

 seed is ever sown, only the grass that comes up naturally being 

 used." 



To supply grass to military cantonments in India regular grass farms 

 have recently been established. These were started by 8ir Herbert 

 Macpherson at Allahabad in 1882, and since then have been extended 

 largely. 



Previous to the introduction of the grass farm system, the practice 

 had been to send out " grass- cutters," whose duty it was to cut and 

 collect grass for the troops from wherever they could. Owing to a full 

 supply of grass being now obtainable by the " grass-cutters" from 

 Government grass lands great saving has been experienced, and the 

 horses are believed to be healthier owing to the grass no longer coming 

 from unprotected and suspicious sources. The amount of grass grown 

 at military stations in India has been so increased that it is now possible 

 to supply not only the British troops, but even the native cavalry with 

 it. The saving at Allahabad alone for the seven years 1882-89 was 

 estimated at Us. 91,158. The extent of the Allahabad grass farm is 

 3,558 acres. 



Ensilage, or the preserving of green fodder, has been carried out at 

 many places in India. The cost as between haymaking and that of 

 silage is, however, unfavourable to the latter. One advantage of cutting 

 an early crop of grass for silage is that there are many grasses, such as 

 numerous species of Pantcum, which seed in the rains ; these may be 

 secured as silage if rain continues, whereas the other grasses, being kept 

 back somewhat, yield a good hay crop about October, when the rains are 

 over. It may further be said in favour of silage that by means of it 

 some grass which would otherwise have been altogether lost owing to 

 the heavy rains is saved by being put into the silo. Voelcker concludes : 

 " I differ entirely from the opinion of one of my predecessors to the 

 effect that India is the great field for the development of silage. That 

 it is the field for haymaking I am much more ready to think. "With a 

 sun and climate such as exist over the greater part of India, I cannot 

 see how it could well be otherwise. Hay requires no making, for it 



* Report on the improvement of Indian Agriculture, London, 1893. 



