September, 1908.] 



209 



Miscellaneous. 



scientific investigation of Indian Agriculture, 

 with the object of ascertaining the lines 

 upon which improvement is practicable. A 

 staff of specialists, highly trained in the 

 agricultural sciences, is employed both in 

 the Imperial and Provincial departments, 

 whose research and experimental wox^k have 

 already shown that many important impove- 

 ments can be effected. These results are 

 placed before the public in the reports and 

 other pulications issued from time to time, 

 but such literature fails to reach the mass of 

 Indian cultivators. It is, therefore, an 

 essential function of the department, no less 

 important than scientific investigation, to 

 devise methods whereby experimental results 

 of proved value can be introduced into 

 ordinary farming practice by the Indian 

 cultivator. The methods to be employed in 

 bringing experimental work of proved value 

 to the notice of the cultivator, so as to secure 

 its adoption in ordinary farming practice, 

 will necessarily vary in different parts of 

 India in accordance with the varying local 

 conditions, such as the system of land tenure, 

 the standard of farming attained by the 

 cultivators, the social condition of the rural 

 community and the like. It may be of 

 interest to give an account of the methods 

 that have been tried in the Central Provinces, 

 and of the lessons learnt from the successes 

 and failures that have resulted. 



In the Central Provinces the villages are 

 held by landowners, whose proprietorship is 

 clearly recognized, though their rights of 

 ownership are subject to the rights of occu- 

 pancy of their tenants. Both proprietor and 

 tenant are given security of tenure in the 

 land, with the object of encouraging each to 

 make the best possible use of it. This system 

 has given a number of village proprietors 

 who often cultivate large home-farms — in- 

 telligent farmers, who are willing to test 

 improved methods and to lay out substantial 

 capital sums, if they are convinced that an 

 adequate return is likely to be secured. 

 Amongst the tenantry there is also a sprink- 

 ling of men who cultivate large holdings and 

 employ large capital; and such men are 

 even more numerous in the rich province of 

 Berar, where the ryoiwari system of tenure 

 prevails. The difficulties in introducing 

 improvements are, therefore, not so great as 

 in a tract where the land is parcelled out 

 into minute holdings, and where the capital 

 at the disposal of each holder is extremely 

 limited, for there are numbers of cultivators 

 ready to expend some hundreds of rupees 

 upon a new implement, an improved method 

 of cultivation or the like, provided they are 

 convinced that the outlay will give a sub- 

 stantial return. The standard of farming 

 attained in different parts of those Provinces 

 varies considerably, but it is on the whole 

 inferior to that of most other parts of India, 

 so that there is much more scope for improve- 

 ment than in provinces where cultivation 



has already reached a high level. In the 

 Central Provinces, as a rule, the land is 

 plentiful and intensive cultivation is but 

 little practised ; in Berar, on the other hand, 

 the great boom in the cotton trade has 

 enormously increased the demand for land, 

 with the result that grazing areas have been 

 curtailed and the standard of cultivation has 

 reached a much higher level. Good culti- 

 vators are found, as exceptions, among all 

 the different castes. The best cultivators are 

 the hereditary cultivating castes such as 

 Kunbis; Powars and Lodhis. Contrasted 

 with these may be mentioned such castes as 

 Gonds and Chamars. The former live a 

 contended but unenterprising life in the hilly 

 jungle tracts of poor soil. Satisfied with a 

 low standard of comfort, they are for the 

 present so inacessible and primitive, as 

 to be altogether outside the sphere of the 

 department's influence. The Chamars; who 

 form the bulk of the cultivators in the 

 Chhattisgarh rice country, though inferior 

 cultivators, enjoy a lazy and stoical content 

 which is opposed to everything an agri- 

 cultural department can teach in the way of 

 progress. Contrasted with these again may 

 be mentioned the educated Brahman culti- 

 vator of Berar who, after having made 

 his fortune at a profession or trade, has 

 purchased land on which he is anxious to 

 experiment with anything from tree cottons 

 to steam ploughs. The kind of improvements 

 necessary, and the lines to be followed in 

 introducing them among cultivators, can 

 only be satisfactorily determined after 

 studying all these conditions as they obtain 

 in the different tracts. In the more back- 

 ward parts, it is often some means of 

 demonstrating better tillage methods that 

 has to be considered ; the Chhattisgarhi, 

 for instance, has yet to learn the very 

 elements of his art, i.e., to cultivate his land 

 properly, to conserve the manure already at 

 his disposal, and to sow his crops efficiently. 

 In more advanced tracts, on the other hand, 

 what is necessary is to organize a system of 

 seed farms from which supplies of pure and 

 improved seed can be obtained, to introduce 

 new and improved varieties of seeds, to teach 

 definite but simple methods of preventing 

 and remedying insect pests and of supple- 

 menting the present supply of manure. 

 Every scheme for demonstrating the results 

 of experimental work to the ordinary culti- 

 vator must, then, be based on a knowledge 

 of the different tracts and of the people and 

 their needs. 



Wherever possible, our teaching should be 

 in the concrete. This can best be done by 

 means of demonstration farms. On these 

 farms many experimental results of proved 

 value can be demonstrated on a practical 

 scale, so as to secure their application to the 

 general practice of farmers. Experimental 

 work should never be attempted on these 

 farms ; first experiment, and then demon- 



