Miscellaneous. 



m 



[April, 1909. 



act as feeders to the larger ones, and the 

 whole work together in framing our 

 national show system. There is one 

 most important item of agricultural 

 exhibitions which I have left to the last 

 — that is, the thorough inspection of 

 animals by the veterinary surgeons ; for 

 if we are to be, as it were, the Stud Farm 

 of the World, it is all-important that 

 one of our first considerations in breed- 

 ing stock should be the freedom of that 

 stock from hereditary disease. Almost 

 yearly new couutries are opened out, 

 our colonies are brought closer to us, the 

 means of communication advances by 

 strides, there will be larger areas for 

 civilisation and cultivation ; and, conse- 

 quently, pure-bred stock will ever be 

 in greater demand- Thus it behoves us to 

 keep up a plentiful supply of the right 

 materia], and to eucourge and perfect 

 to its fullest scope that show system 

 which plays so important a part in its 

 development. — Queensland Agricultural 

 Journal, Vol. XXII., Pt. 1. January, 1909. 



AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH WORK 

 IN BENGAL. 

 The Present Position so far as 

 Seeds, Manures and Implements 

 are Concerned, 

 or more on demonstration work for 

 members of agricultural 

 associations. 



By P. Smith, 

 Deputy Director of Agriculture, Bengal. 



As the Bengal Provincial Agricultural 

 Association is the Premier Association 

 of Bengal, it is but meet that any experi- 

 mental results and original work in 

 Agricultural science obtained by the 

 agricultural Department should be 

 made known first to members of this 

 Association. Experimental work has 

 now been carried on for many years, and 

 this work may be roughly divided under 

 the three heads of Seeds, Manures and 

 Implements. The first point I wish to 

 impress on ali members of this Associ- 

 ation is that experimental work means 

 long years of laborious and careful work 

 —much expenditure without any chance 

 of profit and many failures before even 

 a few successes will be obtained. The 

 first essential for such work is properly 

 qualified men, and I therefore recom- 

 mend you all to leave this work to the 

 Bengal Agricultural Department. These 

 remarks are made to dispel many of 

 the vague ideas that are held by many 



educated men in Bengal in regard to 

 experimental work. We have nu- 

 merous examples of people trying to do 

 this work, but we have not yet seen one 

 single example that could be called an 

 Experiment carried out with the requi- 

 site uniform conditions and care neces- 

 sary for an Experiment. These words 

 are not said with any desire to disparage 

 anyone from helping the work of the 

 Department, but only to impress on 

 members the extreme carefulness that 

 we require fur experimental work. We 

 therefore recommend members to leave 

 this work alone. There is, however, 

 plenty of work foi each member to do, 

 and if he will restrict that work to 

 demonstrating what has been proved by 

 experimentation, he cannot go very far 

 on. We therefore recommed each mem- 

 ber to take up a piece of definite Demon- 

 stration work, and below we give exam- 

 ples of defiuite work that may be taken 

 up. 



Seeds. 



Now as to seeds, it is under this head 

 that this department has most definite 

 results to report, and we lay special 

 emphasis on the recommendations that 

 come under the heading of Seeds. 



First, the foremost of all our experiments 

 go to prove that most seed brought 

 from outside India cannot compete with 

 some local variety that we have already 

 in the country. A possible exception is 

 Russian linseed seed for flax fibre pur- 

 poses, and this is easily explained by the 

 fact that Indian Linseed has been grown 

 now for many years purely and simply 

 for seed only, with the result that it 

 has gradually lost power of growing 

 tall. 



The climate is so searching and the 

 adverse conditions against crops are so 

 great that ive have come to the conclu 

 sion that our salvation depends on im- 

 provement from inside the country and 

 not from outside, and now that our Eco- 

 nomic Botanist has joined his post, I 

 see no reason why the work of improve- 

 ment by selection and cross-breeding 

 should not be taken up very soon. 



For example, the Mauritius Sugar- 

 canes are larger canes than our local 

 ones, but they require a special care 

 and treatment and a constant supply of 

 water. When they have to put up with 

 drought or flood or insect pests or pigs 

 and jackals they cannot compete with 

 local canes such as khari, ikri, for exces- 

 sive water-logging. The same thing 

 holds true for oats, wheat, paddy, maize, 

 etc Indian varieties always proved 

 themselves better than foreign varieties. 



The greatest success so far as seeds 

 are concerned has been obtained by 



