October, 1912.] 



variably resulted in a large increase in the yield of the crop. This 

 increase is not due to the mere transfer of the seed itself, but to the 

 fact that plants grown for long periods under similar conditions of soil 

 and climate adapt themselves to their environments and go into what 

 may be described as a quiescent state. With a change of conditions a 

 new activity is manifested, the result of which is a benefit to the culti- 

 vator. The increase in crop often reaches from 15 to 25 percent. In 

 Ceylon rice is grown practically all over the Island, and each district has 

 more or less distinctive characters as to soil and climate. Seed paddy 

 from Batticaloa, Anuradhapuia, Kandy, Tissamaharama and the 

 Western Province can easily be exchanged, with advantageous results. 

 This work can hardly be effected by the individual efforts of the village 

 cultivator, whose means and knowledge are limited. It can, however, be 

 carried out effectually and without very much capital cost by means 

 of co-operative and other organisations, and for that reason deserves 

 the attention of this society. The third method referred to, viz., the 

 selection of varieties to suit the season and the soil, is one that 

 is fairly well understood by the Ceylon cultivator. In Ceylon there are 

 over two hundred recognized varieties of rice ; some of which are poor 

 yielders, others give heavy crops, some grow on comparatively dry 

 lands, others require a good deal of water, some yield a crop in sixty 

 days, and others take from five to six months. The standard grain is 

 the one that grows with an ordinary supply of water in muddy lands and 

 yields a maximum crop in about four months. A sixty days paddy yields 

 a poor crop, hardly a half or a third of what is obtained from a standard 

 grain, such as Ma-vi or Devareddiri ; but where rain, irrigation water, 

 the supply of cattle, or labour fails, the cultivator is obliged to select a 

 late short-lived variety of rice like sixty days, the yield of which is better 

 than no crop at all. The real object of selecting a short-lived variety is 

 often lost sight of, and instances are not rare where the cultivator has 

 been required to grow a sixty-day crop in preference to the five-month 

 standard variety when the conditions did not warrant such a course. 

 Similarly a variety of paddy that grows on compartively dry soil yields 

 a small crop, but when the cultivator has no choice, he uses this variety, 

 and gets a small crop rather than none at all. It is wrong to argue that 

 because there are varieties of paddy that grow on comparatively dry 

 soil that the cultivator must select them and to charge him with wanton 

 waste of irrigation water, because he can grow a crop with a certain 

 variety of seed with a lesser quantity of irrigation water. The fact is 

 lost sight of that with this latter variety of seed he gets a poorer yield. 



Dry-Ploughing. 



Then there is the question of dry-ploughing with reference to which 

 the cultivator is generally accused of conservatism and folly; but in 

 spite of the fact that agricultural science founded on Western experience 

 favours the exposure of the soil to sun and air, one must not fail to 

 appreciate the fact that puddling and mud-ploughing have been adopted 

 by the rice grower as the result of the experience of generations, 

 and that he is convinced he will get the best result thereby. A series 

 of experiments conducted in Mysore in 1909-11 by Dr. Coleman, the 

 Director of Agriculture, has brought out the fact that puddling and 

 mud-ploughing are more suitable to the requirements of the rice plant ; in 

 fact, the experiments resulted in a clear victory, in increased yield, for 



