Miscellaneous. 



352 



[April, 1910. 



Not only so, but the man who is in 

 actual charge of such work must himself 

 be a good agriculturist, and must win 

 the confidence of those with whom he 

 has to deal. This means among other 

 things that he must be thoroughly well 

 trained at the commencement at an 

 agricultural school. But, in addition, 

 he should go back every now and then 

 to the headquarters where experiments 

 are going on, and work, under direction, 

 at those experiments till he is thorough- 

 ly familiar with every detail, The in- 

 structor-superintendent of a village 

 garden should not simply read the pub- 

 lished accounts of experiments and then 

 try to instruct people in them. He should 

 himself work at them under the officer 

 Avho is responsible for them. 



This question would occupy several 

 papers to work out in detail, and it will 

 suffice for the present if the general 

 principle is made clear. The man must 

 have the absolute confidence of the 

 people, or they will simply laugh at him, 

 and to do that he must have the most 

 intimate and familiar knowledge of 

 agricultural matters, and especially of 

 what he is going to demonstrate. 



Now, so long as the villager remains in 

 the grasp of the money-lender, improve- 

 ments must be confined to those that 

 cost nothing, and as we have said, these 

 are very few and far between. And 

 while he thus remains at the lowest 

 possible level, he becomes in reality 

 lower in comparison to others. The 

 capitalist and the more progressive pea- 

 sant are continually improviug, while 

 he remains stationary. This would not 

 matter if he were entirely self-contain- 

 ed, living only on his own produce, or 

 that obtained by exchange from the 

 village artificers, but lie wants to buy, 

 and to buy he must sell, and if he re- 

 mains stationary, the price of his pro- 

 duce will fall as other people improve. 



There is no need for the peasant to be 

 so helpless. He must combine in money 

 matters, on the lines we have often 

 indicated, which of course means that he 

 must at the start get help from richer 

 men or from Government. Richer men 

 are not anxious to lend their capital at 

 a low rate of interest ; it pays them 

 better to lend to uncombined cultivators 

 at high interest than to the combined 

 cultivators at low interest. It thus al- 

 most inevitably falls to the Government 

 to aid in the first place. But, and this 

 is important— very important — the culti- 

 vators must show, in whatever ways 

 they can, e.g., by supporting the volun- 

 tary societies now working, that they 

 desire such help. There are many 

 richer people in Ceylon, however, e.g„ 



many Europeans, who would probably 

 be willing to aid in the establishment 

 of a proper village society with a decent 

 capital. The local societies hitherto 

 have had to work on 400 or 500 rupees, 

 which is a niere drop in the bucket. 

 Surely this society could raise funds 

 to start a really first-class society, or 

 raise such a society as that in Dumbara 

 to full efficiency, as a test of such work. 

 1 repeat, and shall continue to repeat, 

 that till the villager is set on his legs 

 financially, and taught to combine, he 

 must be the prey of the money-lender 

 and the capitalist, and must remain at 

 the foot of the ladder of agricultural 

 progress.* 



J. 0. W. 



LITERATURE OF ECONOMIC 

 BOTANY AND AGRICULTURE. 



By Dr. J. C. Willis. 



Maize : — 



The hand maize sheller. Ind. Agri. 



Jl.j April 1008, p. 125. 

 Maize cultivation in Burma. Ind. 



Agric, Oct. 1908, p. 301. 

 The cultivation and marketing of 



maize. Bull. Imp. Inst. 6, 1908, p. 



261. "T. A." Dec. 1908, p. 550, Mar. 



1909, p. 253. 



Jerusalem Maize. Queensl. Ag. Jonrn. 



Dec. 1908, p. 271. 

 Composition of Green Maize and of 



the silage produced therefrom. Ag. 



Gaz. of N. S. W„ Dec. 1U08, p. 1011. 

 An important tropical cereal. " T.A." 



Dec. 1908, p. 522. 



Maize Breeding in the United State-. 

 Agri. News, VII, 173, Dec. 1908, 

 p, 394. 



Deeret fixant la quantite de mais 

 originaire NouveHes-Hebrides a ad- 

 mentre en franchise en Nouvelle- 

 Caledonie. L'Agric. pratique des 

 pays chauds, Jan. 1909, p. 4. 



Essai comnai atif de culture de mais a 

 Thauk-Ba. BuU. Economique. Jan.- 

 Feb. 1909, p. 55. 



Cultures comparatives de mais h 

 Ye.i dink, en 1908. do. p. 160. 



Some facts concerning maize. Jl. of 

 Agri. Victoria, VII. 5, May 1909, 

 p. '103. 



* Some people seem to think that because in 

 many cases the villager only borrows his land 

 (for a considerable rent) and his seed paddy, 

 and because this is the " custom," that there- 

 fore he is not seriously in debt. He ought not 

 to have to borrow seed, and he ought, if pos- 

 sible, to own the land. 



