August, 1908.] 



153 



Miscellaneous. 



partially cover tlie summer house the 

 carpenter has made, mother and father, 

 ourselves, and friends will often read, 

 talk, or rest there in full view of our 

 floral success. — 'F. and F.' "—Queensland 

 Agricultural Journal, Vol. XX,, Part 

 4, April, 1908. 



THE AGRICULTURAL CONFERENCE 

 AT AHMEDABAD IN NOVEMBER, 

 1907. 



By Harold H. Mann, D.Sc, 

 Principal, Agricultural College, Poona. 



Provincial Conferences in India for the 

 discussion of agricultural matters are 

 comparatively new and their utility is 

 disputed. Many believe that they can 

 serve no useful purpose and lead to 

 little else than impracticable and 

 irrelevant talk. The Ahmedabad Con- 

 ference gave me an opportunity of judg- 

 ing whether such an opinion could 

 usually be justified. 



The Conference. 

 The Conference was presided over by 

 the Senior Member of the Governor's 

 Council in the Bombay Presidency (Mr. 

 J. W. P. Muir-Mackenzie), and contained 

 representatives from nearly every in- 

 terest in the province which had even a 

 remote connection with the culture of 

 the land. It comprised merchants and 

 millowners from Bombay and Ahmeda- 

 bad, upon whom a large part of the 

 cotton growers of Western India depend 

 for their market ; exporters of cotton 

 or other produce whose agents penetrate 

 into every corner of the province ; land- 

 owners, large and small, from Gujerat, 

 Kathiawar, the Deccan, and even from 

 Kanara and the Southern Mahratta 

 country ; representatives from local 

 Agricultural Associations and genuine 

 agriculturists — actual tillers of the soil. 

 The agricultural needs of particular 

 localities were clearly defined, and the 

 discussion showed what were the real 

 difficulties of the cultivators. They, 

 moreover, indicated many lines in which 

 the Department of Agriculture might 

 be of direct and immediate use to the 

 agricultural interest. I came away 

 feeling that, for me at any rate, the 

 Conference had furnished much food for 

 reflection and basis for action. 



In this article I shall merely discuss 

 one or two matters that were brought 

 before the Conference, and indicate some 

 conclusions to which I have come, after 

 a careful consideration of what passed 

 there, combined with independent infor- 

 mation. I am hopeful that such a 



statement will induce some of those 

 who may not be in accord with my con- 

 clusions to indicate in a future number 

 of the Journal their reasons for coming 

 to a contrary opinion. 



Cotton. 



On the first day the very important 

 discussion on the improvement of cotton 

 completely overshadowed other pro- 

 ceedings. It was complained that the 

 efforts of the Agricultural Department 

 in this direction were painfully slow, 

 and that little result had been obtained 

 after a good many years of experiment. 

 Doubt was expressed, moreover, as to 

 the possibility of maintaining the purity 

 and hence the quality of any new 

 variety or type of seed that may be 

 introduced. It was further stated that 

 there had been great difficulty in getting 

 manufacturers to give a fair price for 

 small quantities of an improved staple, 

 and that cultivators were, therefore, 

 discouraged from growing new kinds. 

 The manufacturers complained that they 

 had no means of knowing where and 

 when improved staples were being 

 actually cultivated. 



Round these points the whole discus- 

 sion ranged. Mr. Gammie was able to 

 give a complete answer to the complaint 

 regarding the slowness in the production 

 of improved types. In Bombay the 

 false method of "field to field" selection 

 was adopted and proved a failure many 

 years ago. This might have been anti- 

 cipated, since in many districts the best 

 fields then contained, as they do now, 

 a very complex mixture of different 

 types of cotton, and these types them- 

 selves consist of good, bad and indif- 

 ferent plants. Mr. Gammie stated that 

 he had found it necessary, before even 

 beginning the systematic selection and 

 crossing of cottons on any large scale, to 

 obtain, examine in detail, and define the 

 very numerous varieties of cotton in the 

 Bombay Presidency. This had taken 

 years. Then selection and crossing were 

 begun, and now there was a prospect 

 that after next y ear some of the new 

 varieties which have been produced 

 could be distributed for experiment on a 

 fairly large scale. 



Neither Mr. Gammie nor any speaker 

 at the Conference mentioned a difficulty 

 which must follow as soon as im- 

 proved stocks are brought into general 

 use. This is the necessity for continu- 

 ing the selection continually, for if this 

 is not done, reversion to the average 

 characters of the type from which they 

 are produced will inevitably occur. 

 Nearly all plants are apt to deteriorate 

 in this country. An improved cotton 

 hybrid will speedily degenerate unless its 



