Miscellaneous. 



272 



[September, 1908. 



tions, the work of the department can be 

 brought to the notice of a large body of 

 cultivators who are not otherwise accessible. 

 By combining popular lectures on the exhi- 

 bits with practical demonstrations of each, 

 much good Work can be done. This requires 

 to be arranged on a systematic plan in order 

 to secure that the exhibits and lectures are 

 suited to the tract served by the show. The 

 exhibits of farm produce should be neatly 

 arranged in sufficiently large quantities to 

 allow of their being handled by interested 

 parties. It must always be remembered that 

 nine-tenths of the cultivators never read, 

 and that their minds are not trained to 

 assimilate abstract ideas. They are children 

 of nature, and as such get all their impres- 

 sions from the concrete. The exhibits should, 

 therefore, be arranged so as to be an intelli- 

 gible and instructive lesson to the ordinary 

 illiterate ryot. The lecturer should, there- 

 fore, carry with him a small travelling 

 museum of exhibits to illustrate his lecture. 

 This department has started on these lines 

 to prepare lectures and exhibits suitable for 

 the different tracts. The more important 

 shows and fairs of each tract will in future 

 be attended by the superintendent of the 

 station of that tract, or by some higher offi- 

 cial. The superintendent will be supplied 

 from head-quarters with a copy of the 

 lectures that are to be delivered and the 

 necessary museum of exhibits to illustrate 

 the same. In the cotton tract the latter 

 includes bolls of the different varieties of 

 cotton recommended for the tract mounted on 

 cardboard together with those of the varie- 

 ties already grown locally ; on a second sheet 

 the lint is mounted so as to show their 

 relative lengths ; on a third is shown the life- 

 history of the stem borer and an actual 

 plant killed by the same, with the help of 

 which the lecturer will explain the remedies 

 and method of prevention. Cotton boll- 

 worm and cotton wilt disease are similarly 

 illustrated. The artificial manures recom- 

 mended for cotton are also exhibited along 

 with bags of uncleaned cotton to show the 

 relative outturns of unmanured land and 

 land to which these fertilizers have been 

 applied. At exhibitions the exhibits would 

 be more varied and on a much larger scale. 

 And many of the experiments that have 

 given useful results at the stations can be 

 graphically illustrated there by pot cultures. 



{To be concluded.) 



AGRICULTURAL SAYINGS IN BENGAL. 



By Jamini Mohan Ghosh, b.a., 

 Mymensingh. 



Every country has its sayings, and it is 

 the fitness of things that as one of the 

 foremost agricultural provinces in India, 

 Bengal should possess a wealth of agri- 

 cultural folk-lore. 



Like other folk-lores of Bengal, these agri- 

 cultural syaings are attributed to Khana, 

 a mythical lady, who is said to have been 

 gifted with supernatural astrological know- 

 ledge. The reason of enshrouding them 

 with legendary mystery, so common in this 

 country, may be to render a religious 

 sanction to them, so that they may be 

 scrupulously observed by the intensely reli- 

 gious peasantry of this country. These 

 sayings are mostly in the form of couplets, 

 dealing with the various aspects of cultivation, 

 and are represented as being addressed by 

 Khana to her father-in-law, Baraha. Never- 

 theless, they very often betray in their 

 language and observations, the rhymer to be 

 no other than a tiller of the soil. For who but 

 a cultivator would characterise the "uncertain 

 heaven" with patches of clouds, as a field 

 ' ' broken up with axe and spade, " or would 

 consider it "a favour of Luxmi (goddess of 

 Fortune) to have the compound of his house 

 filled with water gourd and cucumber " and 

 feel ' ' her presence when his thatched roof is 

 covered with leaves of water-melon." 



That the true cultivator must needs labour 

 on his own soil is expressed in the saying 

 that "he who himself works or employs 

 labourers gains heaps, and he who takes 

 umbrella on his shoulder (i.e., supervises the 

 labourers in his fields) gains half, while the 

 cry for want of rice rends the house of him 

 who asks questions (of his labourers) remain- 

 ing idle in his house." Neither should one 

 have partners in his field, for ' ' only father 

 and son should plough one's field, failing 

 which take only one's own brother." Again, 

 says another proverb, "he who having oxen 

 does not plough suffers misery for ever." 



Rain is an important factor in the agri- 

 culture of India. Audit is, therefore, only 

 proper that in Bengal, where there is practi- 

 cally no irrigation, a large portion of agri- 

 cultural sayings should relate to rainfall. 



Rain from about the middle of November 

 to the middle of January is very injurious to 

 the ripening paddy crop, and hinders the 

 gathering, drying and threshing of the crop, 

 so run the couplets, — "If rain falls in the 

 month of Agrahayan (middle November to 

 middle December) the king himself goes 

 a-begging" (signifying famine). Also, "if 

 it rains in Pons (middle December to middle 

 January), even the husks bring money (so 

 great is the scarcity)." 



On the contrary, rain is very welcome 

 from February to April, as the ploughing and 

 sowing season commences, and a moist soil 

 is easy to be ploughed up, so goes the 

 proverb : — "If there be rain during late Magh 

 {i.e., early February) the holy land is of the 

 blessed king" (meaning there is the indi- 

 cation of a prosperous season), and also "if it 

 rains in Chaitra (middle March to middle 

 April) there will be growth of paddy." 



