Miscellaneous, 



548 



[June, 1912. 



sown and harvested at the same times. 

 Every act of his life is guided by the 

 regular and unvarying movements of 

 nature, and the farmer himself may be 

 said to be a part of nature's system. It 

 is far otherwise with the physician, the 

 lawyer and the merchant. They have 

 necessarily to study the fickle thing by 

 whose favour they live,— human nature 

 with its thousand varying modes and 

 fancies. Their minds are, therefore, 

 necessarily always on the alert for signs 

 of change. One year a doctor must, if 

 he wishes to be popular, recommend the 

 operation for appendicitis. Another 

 year he must insist on the virtues of the 

 Bulgarian milk bacillus. The piece 

 goods merchant knows that the pattern 

 which sold last year may be out of 

 favour this year. There are so many 

 lawyers here that I should be afraid to 

 give specific instances for that profes- 

 sion, but I believe 1 am right in saying 

 that different clients require different 

 handling and, with due respect, the 

 same may be said of the judges them- 

 selves. It is, in fact, our occupations 

 which mould our characters, and the 

 occupation of a farmer is such as to 

 make him a conservative. Looking into 

 the matter more closely, we must admit 

 that very often change is uncalled for in 

 agricultural methods. It is contrary to 

 human nature to expect the average man 

 to incur exertions in excess of what 

 suffices for his needs, So long as he can 

 live comfortably on the scale demanded 

 by his standard of living, there is no 

 need for change. Life in many parts of 

 India is still so simple that over large 

 tracts there is no call for agricultural 

 improvement. The need for improve- 

 ment only arises because even the re- 

 motest villages are connected up with 

 the outside world, which is always 

 changing. 



" To foresee the need for change, to 

 recognise the slight indications which 

 herald its advent, requires not only a 

 scientific training but very special gifts 

 of insight and imagination. A common 

 error is to suppose that because the 

 peasant gives an absurd reason for re- 

 jecting a proposed change in his 



methods, his opposition to it is irra- 

 tional. He may know by instinct that 

 the suggested improvement is no im- 

 provement at all, because it is out of 

 harmony with his general system of 

 cultivation, but he would never be able 

 to express this idea and hence gives the 

 first reason which comes into his head. 

 Most of the critics of the farmer's conser- 

 vatism are ill-equipped for the task of 

 setting him right, and every language 

 probably has old stories, the moral of 

 which is that the man who listens to his 

 neighbour's advice comes to a bad end, 



"One difficulty, then, common to all 

 countries, is that the farming classes are 

 necessarily conservative and are usually 

 right in being so. When, therefore, we 

 have a real improvement to put before 

 them, they are apt to turn a deaf ear. 



" This difficulty is present in a special 

 degree in India where not only are all 

 classes more conservative than in the 

 West, but the separation between the 

 educated classes and the agricultural is 

 more complete than elsewhere, resulting 

 in a want of knowledge on the one side 

 and of confidence on the other. The 

 agricultural department has a double 

 task to overcome this difficulty. It has 

 to try to interest the agricultural classes 

 in education and the educated classes 

 in agriculture. 



" Only second to the difficulty of over- 

 coming the conservatism of the farmer 

 comes the difficulty of finding improve- 

 ments which can-be safely recommended 

 to him. Occasionally the example of the 

 agricultural departments of other coun- 

 tries is held up to us for imitation. It 

 should be remembered that the agricul- 

 tural department of a country like 

 America or Africa has an easy task 

 before it compared with ours. In those 

 countries the farmers are still opening 

 up virgin land, or only just beginning 

 to feel the need for intensive cultivation, 

 The experts of the Department have the 

 experience of older countries to guide 

 them in their work. The farmers of new 

 countries are many of them not pro- 

 fessional farmers at all but adven* 

 turous spirits who have been attracted 



