Edible Products. 



222 



[SEPTEMBER, 1909. 



ed land will be assessed to rent and 

 revenue at a specially high rate. The 

 Settlement Commissioner has promised 

 to take steps to contradict this rumour, 

 and, as the revenue of the greater part 

 of Chhattisgarh is about to be fixed for 

 twenty years, it is not likely to af- 

 fect transplantation after the current 

 year. 



At present the demonstration plots 

 are confined to irrigable land, and it is 

 desirable not to urge transplantion at 

 present on uuirrigable land, although it 

 is safely practised on large areas in the 

 Waiuganga valley, where the rainfall is 

 somewhat higher {vide Mr. Oloustons' 

 para 1). ''In that part of the country the 

 rice bunds are generally higher and the 

 fields hold more Avater than in Chhat- 

 tisgarh, so that risk of damage by 

 drought is less- When once well estab- 

 lished in the irrigable lauds of Chhat- 

 tisgarh, the practice will be readily 

 extended to dry areas. There is no 

 reason to suppose that the labour 

 difficulty offers any serious obstacle. 

 Labour is more plentiful than in the 

 Wainganga valley, but the transplanters 

 naturally work very slowly; with 

 practice they will complete their tasks 

 in one-third or one-quarter of the time, 

 and cultivators will find that they have 

 ample leisure for weeding the biasi crop 

 after transplantation is completed. In 

 connection with this part of the subject, 

 it may be mentioned that although the 

 cost of weeding a biasi crop properly 

 is not less than that of transplanting 

 rice on a simaller area, the Chhattisgarh 

 very often weeds his crop very per- 

 functorily, securing no doubt a much 

 smaller crop, but at the same time 

 avoiding expenditure which he perhaps 

 cannot afford without burrowing at a 

 high rate of interest. To such a man 

 the unavoidable expenditure on labour 

 in transplanting is a serious con- 

 sideration. 



,l The want of a sufficient number of 

 strong cattle seems to be the most 

 important obstacle at present. The 

 Chhattisgarh bullock is the smallest and 

 weakest in the Provinces, rarely more 

 than 36" high behind the hump and 

 always in very bad condition in July, 

 when the heavy work of transplantation 

 has to be got through. Buffaloes are 

 used for all heavy work, and with the 

 datari used now, are indispensable to 

 prepare the fields for transplantation. 

 It may be possible for the little bullocks 

 to pull the small dataris which will be 

 tried next year ; but for really thorough 

 cultivation, 1 think, buffaloes will be 

 required. There is now one pair of 

 buffaloes for every 28 acres of rice land 



in Raipur District including the zamin- 

 daris ; but the proportion of buffaloes 

 to rice is much smaller than this in the 

 open parts of the Khalsa. It is found 

 impossible to breed useful buffaloes in 

 the open country, owing to the absence 

 of good grazing areas and the great heat 

 of the shadeless plains ; consequently 

 all the buffaloes in the open country are 

 imported. By far the greater number 

 come from Rewah and Saugor, and are 

 bought at from Rs. GO to Rs. 80 a pair. A 

 few are brought from the zamindaris of 

 Kauriaand Bindra Nawagarh. In these 

 remote places there is little demand for 

 ghi, and the calves get most of the milk, 

 so that they are line strong animals 

 aud sell for double t'ie price fetched by 

 those from the north. They are conse- 

 quently less used- Transplantation, while 

 increasing the demand for buffaloes, will 

 provide the cultivator with the means 

 of purchasing them, and we may hope 

 that in a short time the effective demand 

 may so far increase as to make it 

 worth the while of the inhabitants of 

 the northern Feudatories to follow the 

 example of their neighbours in Rewah, 

 and send cattle to the ' Khaloti.' Mean- 

 time, we must do what we can by hiring 

 out buffaloes to needy cultivators, as sug- 

 gested by the Deputy Director of Agri- 

 culture, by taccavi loans and possibly 

 by co-operative credit to make smooth 

 the rough path of progress under the 

 feet of the conservative Chhattisgarh 

 till he begins to cry ' Excelsior' without 

 prompting." 



This note may fittingly end with the 

 statement that if a normal crop is reaped 

 this year, the additional profits put into 

 the pockets of cultivators by the labours 

 of Mr. Clouston, Mr. Tundilall Powar 

 and their assistants will considerably 

 exceed the whole of the annual expen- 

 diture on their salaries and the cost of 

 the experimental farm at Labandih. 



Transplanting should in future extend 

 very rapidly in Chhattisgarh if the 

 Agricultural Department continues to 

 work on the present lines. Of the enor- 

 mous gains which its introduction will 

 mean to the farming community of this 

 division, it is impossible to form any- 

 thing like an adequate estimate. It 

 should be possible within the next 

 twenty years to raise the standard of 

 cultivation to that already attained in 

 Balaghat. For Chhattisgarh that would 

 mean 1,926,450 acres of transplanted rice 

 or an increase of 1,897,802 acres, which 

 wouid increase the profits of the farming 

 community of this division by nearly 

 four crores of rupees annually. 



