Miscellaneous' 



178 



[May, 1909. 



allowing: for poor and indifferent land 

 and a thousand and one other circum- 

 stances that a producer has to contend 

 with, suppose the 600,000 acres yielded 

 30 bushels per acre year in and year out 

 we shall have 18,000,000 bushels, while we 

 consume about 12^ million bushels ; and 

 allowing two million bushels for the 

 increasing population, etc., we shall 

 have a surplus of 3i million bushels. 

 This is not taking to account the vast 

 amount of paddy land that is lying idle, 

 some of it under the most favoured 

 conditions that of being under the latest 

 developed irrigation. 



WHAT WOULD THE UP COUNTRY 

 PLANTER SAY 



if this was an accomplished fact? The 

 bugbear that is threatening him now, 

 that of having to pay increased wages to 

 his coolies, would vanish, as the daily 

 bread and wants of the coolies would be 

 available at a reasonable price. What a 

 happy time it would be for the poor 

 classes in our city and towns ! This 

 would also open up another industry— 

 that of converting the paddy into rice 

 which will no doubt give employment to 

 many. The sooner a scheme is formul- 

 ated for teaching the people how to 

 cultivate their lands the sooner we 

 shall have these results ; and, if the 

 education is carried out by capable 

 men, ten years would show results 

 that would astonish the most conser- 

 vative mind. Our Governor in his 

 remarks at the December meeting of the 

 Board of Agriculture stated, referring 

 to the native cultivator, "They had to 

 be shown the value of labour, and 

 I quite agree with Mr. Silva when he 

 said that the efforts of the villagers 

 during the year should not be devoted 

 to paddy patches only but to other 

 things as well. And it might yet be 

 that, while improving the state of Agri- 

 culture generally, the solution of the 

 problem is not to be found in the devel- 

 opment and extension of the rice fields, 

 but in cultivating other products— such 

 for instance as Indian maize, which was 

 grown and was not received with that 

 disfavour with which it was viewed 

 once." These last words of His Excel- 

 lency's prove to us that it is possible to 



DRIVE OUT THE CONSERVATIVE PRE- 

 JUDICES 



of the village cultivator. If we can 

 repeat this on a large scale then one of the 

 great, if not the greatest of, difficulties 

 will have gone never to return again. 

 If by teaching the people how to produce 

 more paddy than they are used to, by 

 adopting better modes of cultivation, 

 that is to say, if the cultivator is reliev- 

 ed to a certain extent of his conservative 



prejudices and made to realise that 

 modern modes of cultivation are bring- 

 ing in greater yields than he ever dreamt 

 of before, then " the cultivation of other 

 products " will come to him of itself. 

 He will be loused from his lethargic 

 state and start thirsting for information. 

 Of course we must presume that the 

 experimental farms have been doing 

 the class of work that I depicted in my 

 article on the "Scope of Experimental 

 Farms.'' Once we get the villagers roused 

 up (the great difficulty is to do that), 

 to a wish to learn further, then the 

 imparting of information becomes sim- 

 ple. I think that we need not seriously 

 trouble about that problem as it will 

 solve itself in the natural course of 

 events. All our present energies at the 

 highest pressure point should be devoted 

 to rouse the villager and get him to 

 make a start. It has been the 



EXPERIENCE OF THE GREAT FARMING 

 WORLD. 



that farmers who cultivate small areas 

 of land cannot make a living by the 

 production of cereals alone. They must 

 go in for mixed farming. In my article 

 on the "Scope of Experimental Farms " 

 I dealt with pigs, poultry, general dry 

 grain production, and cattle. The im- 

 provement of cattle in the Island must 

 not be forgotten by our Governor 

 when he introduces agricultural educa- 

 tion and progress. What would be the 

 state of an European agricultural 

 country if they had no supply of good 

 draft horses? I dealt with the subject 

 at some length as to how it might be 

 done in Ceylon, so I will now only point 

 out the importance of it. For better 

 modes of cultivation we require imple- 

 ments, and they will be undoubtedly 

 heavier than the present scratching 

 machines, i e., the native ploughs. The 

 increase of production will mean trans- 

 port, and transport aud heavier imple- 

 ments mean the requiring of more, 

 and a superior class of, draft cattle. Of 

 course, more and better cattle mean 

 also the better feeding of them. This 

 no doubt must be one of the lessons the 

 villager has to be taug ht. There must 

 not be any delay in 



STARTING A STOCK FARM, 



as it will take a few years for it to be 

 able to show general improvement in 

 the cattle of the country. There are no 

 insurmountable difficulties in starting 

 this farm. The initial expenses of start- 

 ing it will not be what this country 

 cannot stand. It is an absolute neces- 

 sity aud many industries depend on it; 

 so it behoves the country even to go to 

 the extent of some sacrifice to establish 



