June, 1910,, 



537 



Miscellaneous. 



sary that each assistant engaged should 

 ride from village to village of his circle 

 so as to see the work at least every 

 second day. When there is some diffi- 

 culty in getting the practical part of 

 the new method taught to villagers as 

 in the present case, an experienced 

 transplanter is sent to each village of 

 the circle. He works daily along with 

 the coolies and trains them in various 

 processes. It was thus found possible in 

 1908 to get as much as 100 acres trans- 

 planted in one village and 300 acres in 

 one circle. 



The agricultural assistant is ordinarily 

 kept in the same circld for at least a 

 year and, if possible, he is employed to 

 demonstrate some other improvement 

 during the second cropping season. 

 Great care is taken to cultivate friendly 

 relations with the cultivators. From 

 the experience gained it is felt that to 

 carry on demonstration work on a large 

 scale it will be necessary to appoint two 

 classes of men. The one class should 

 consist of educated men who have a 

 thorough practical knowledge of agri- 

 culture and who have preferably passed 

 through an agricultural college. The 

 other class should consist of intelligent 

 villagers who can preferably read and 

 write and who have been taken from 

 the land and trained in the improved 

 methods practised at the experimental 

 stations. For every one of the first class, 

 from six to ten of such men could be 

 most usefully employed. They would 

 be attached to a village and each would 

 have to work with his own hands in 

 training the ryots iu the new methods 

 recommended. 



In addition to the demonstration of the 

 method of transplanting rice in Ohhat- 

 tisgarh, in the same district successful 

 demonstration has been given of me- 

 thods of using irrigation water most 

 effectively and of how to grow addi- 

 tional crops after early and medium 

 rice. The method of eradicating kans 

 gi'ass by means of Ransome's Turnwrest 

 plough has also been most successfully 

 demonstrated. 



Bombay. — In Bombay, a dairy farm 

 was started at Poona some 17 years ago. 

 Apprentices were taught improved dairy 

 methods and bulletins giving detailed 

 information were then issued. The 

 result has been so far favourable that 

 separators are now commonly used in 

 all parts of the Bombay Presidency and 

 there is a large trade in butter for con- 

 sumption in India and for export. The 

 demonstration of the value of some oil 

 cakes as manures for sugarcane and 

 other valuable crops has been so success- 

 ful that oil-cake, chiefly safflower cake, 

 68 



is now commonly used as a manure in 

 many tracts. Broach cotton was success- 

 fully grown on the Dharwar Farm and 

 this success was then demonstrated to 

 cultivators in the district who are now 

 growing it on a large scale. 



Apart from special farms a good deal 

 in the way of local demonstration of 

 improvements has been done in a num- 

 ber of provinces, Efforts in this direc- 

 tion have, however, in the past been 

 limited by the smallness of the trained 

 staff available. One most successful 

 piece of such work has been done in 

 Bombay in improving the manufacture 

 of gur (crude sugar) from sugarcane 

 by sending trained sugar boilers to 

 various centres where they produced 

 a higher quality of gur at a considerably 

 less cost particularly for fuel, 



Madras.— In Madras the general in- 

 troduction of the iron sugarcane mill 

 was due to the demonstrations of its use 

 being held in important sugarcane tracts. 

 But demonstration farms (areas taken up 

 for demonstration) have not yet been 

 attempted. Considerable success has 

 been obtained iu advising people to try 

 better proved methods of cultivation. 

 The planting of single paddy seedlings 

 has, for instance, become a common 

 practice in many of the chief paddy 

 growing tracts. People tried this for 

 themselves on a small scale and they 

 gradually adopted the practice. 



The successes of such experiments have 

 at times found their way into the press 

 and have thereby become widely spread. 

 Recently the Agricultural Department 

 has been assisting cultivators to adopt 

 improved practices by lending imple- 

 ments and trained coolies and by the 

 advice, encouragement and assistance of 

 its subordinate officers. The practice of 

 drill cultivation of cotton in the Tinne- 

 velly district has within the last two 

 years greatly extended and though only 

 750 acres were grown this year by ryots 

 under this system, there is every indica- 

 tion of a rapid extension in future, So 

 far in Madras it has been found best to 

 leave the ryot in full control of the 

 demonstration areas, but in backward 

 areas where it is not possible to get the 

 ryot to carry out the demonstration, it 

 may be necessary to take up land or 

 come to some other arrangements with 

 the ryots and keep it more under the 

 control of the department. 



Punjab. -In the Punjab owing to the 

 dearness and scarcity of labour parti- 

 cular attention has been directed to- 

 wards the demonstration of labour- 

 saving appliances. Encouraging pro- 

 gress has been made thus with reapers. 



