Fibres. 



310 



[April, 1912. 



farm has been propagated in each case 

 from a single mother plant. The seed of 

 these selected strains of rosea buri and 

 malvensis is supplied to the different 

 private seed farms, whose owners in turn 

 distribute it to the cultivators. Prom the 

 experimental and seed farms 120,000 lbs. 

 of seed were distributed last year ; about 

 150,000 lbs. will be distributed this year; 

 while next year, if the crop is a normal 

 one,the distribution will run up to at least 

 200,000 lbs. There are already forty-two 

 of these seed farms in existence, scattered 

 over sixteen taluks. Selected seed will 

 continue to be supplied to these from the 

 experimental farms, where selection is 

 carefully supervised. The owners of 

 seed farms fix their own rates and 

 arrange for the sale and distribution of 

 their own seed : the Department of Agri- 

 culture advertises it for them as widely 

 as possible. Till this year, the selected 

 seed for these farms was supplied by the 

 Department free of cost ; as they have 

 now become popular institutions, and as 

 the merits of seed selection are becoming 

 more widely appreciated, those who 

 have started new farms this year have 

 agreed to pay the full market price for 

 the Department's selected seed. All 

 these farms will be run on that footing 

 next year. They will therefore be 

 entirely self-supporting in future, and 

 the duty of the Department regarding 

 them will consist in supervision with 

 the view of ensuring honest dealing, in 

 widening the distribution of seed of the 

 variety specially suited to the locality, 

 in keeping in touch with the owner, and 

 in popularising and extending the system 

 of distribution to other centres. The 

 system is based on the assumption that 

 the owners, nearly all of whom are 

 enlightened members of the Agricultural 

 Associations, are sufficiently honest to 

 sell as selected seed only that which they 

 have raised each year from the improved 

 strains supplied by the Department. 

 The seed supplied to them being of pure 

 strains, it necessarily follows, that in the 

 event of their adulterating it with their 

 own inferior seed, their sins will find 

 them out in the mixed crop raised from 

 it, and that they will soon lose any 



reputation they may have gained as 

 seedsmen, No such adulteration has 

 yet been reported, and we believe that, 

 by exercising efficient supervision, we 

 are in a position to put an end to the 

 practice, should it arise. 



The greatest difficulty of all is that of 

 getting the kapas ginned without in- 

 juring the quality of the seed. Up to 

 the present nearly all the seed has been 

 hand-ginned. As these farms have in- 

 creased in number, however, great diffi- 

 culty has been experienced in getting 

 sufficient labour at the proper season. 

 During the picking season, i.e., from 

 October till January, the women coolies 

 are employed in the juar and cotton 

 harvest, and the seed-grower has there- 

 fore to store his kapas till the slack 

 season comes round which coincides with 

 the beginning of the hot weather. By 

 that time the price of lint has generally 

 fallen ; moreover, the buyer reduces the 

 prices still further, on the ground that 

 the cotton has been hand-ginned and is 

 therefore ' dirty.' The grower has still 

 another difficulty to contend with : in 

 the event of plague breaking out in his 

 village, flea-infected plague rats some- 

 times harbour in the kapas and die 

 there. In the light of these facts it has 

 been decided to get the work done in 

 future by power rather than hand gins. 

 All the seed cotton of the Experimental 

 Farm, Akol, has been ginned for the last 

 four years on two Piatt's gins driven 

 at a low speed by a small 5 H.P. Steam 

 engine. The germinating percentage of 

 the seed ginned in this way is as high as 

 that of hand-ginned seed. Arrangements 

 are now being made to set up similar 

 ginning plants, but with an oil instead of 

 a steam engine. We thus hope to have 

 the whole cotton belt studded with 

 hundreds of village seed farms, with 

 small central ginning factories here and 

 there, capable of dealing with all the 

 selected cotton grown thereon. These 

 farms will also continue to serve as 

 centres at which seed of new varieties 

 will be grown for distribution. Of buri, 

 the new variety recommended for certain 

 classes of soil, seed for 3,000 acres was 



