2 



ryot in the latter districts be questioned, he will often admit that the former 

 method is the better, but "it is not the custom" is his reply to the natural 

 inquiry why he does not adopt it. 



Another great obstacle is the indolence of the villager. He may know 

 quite Avell that a particular method is better than his own, and that it will 

 cost him nothing to adopt it, but if it involve more labour than the existing 

 system, or an unaccustomed form of labour, then he will have none of it. Against 

 this rock all attempts to introduce transplanting in place of broadcasting rice 

 have hitherto been shattered in Ceylon. Though the yield is so much better in 

 proportion to the seed and the labour used, the villager objects to the labour 

 of stooping to do the transplanting woi'k. Of course custom has a great deal 

 to do with this result also. 



Yet another obstacle, and perhaps the greatest of all, is the poverty of 

 the small village cultivator. This has been fully dealt with elsewhere, and only 

 needs mention here. 



There are many other obstacles in the way of progress in village agricul- 

 tural methods, but the last that need be specially dealt with here is ignorance. 

 There can be little doubt that simple want of knowledge is at the bottom of 

 much that is bad, wasteful, or inefficient. But to remove this ignoi'ance is more 

 easily said than done. It is often suggested that agriculture and horticulture should 

 be definitely taught as such in the schools, and probably some good may be 

 effected in this way, but there is one very great difficulty in this work, that 

 of getting the teachers. The ordinary school teacher is incapable of teaching 

 practical agriculture, knowing less about it than the villagers around him. The 

 teacher who has been to an Agricultural College has usually the characteristic 

 faults of the college-trained native of Southern Asia. He has learnt a great 

 deal of book-knowledge on many topics connected with agriculture, but has 

 little or no notion of how to apply any of it practically or suit it to local 

 needs. If he is sent to teach, he is often dogmatic in the lecture room, and a 

 failure in the field. If he is provided with an Experimental Garden for actual 

 demonstration purposes, he is liable to make a still worse exhibition of incom- 

 petence, or to fall under temptation to misappropriate the produce. A scheme 

 of this kind was tried some years ago in Ceylon, and its epitaph was written 

 by Mr. F. R. Ellis in 1899 in the words " Government has not very long ago 

 got rid of the last of a happy band of youths who for a series of years received 

 a good salary for cultivating Crown land with cattle supplied by Government, 

 and appropriating the produce to their own use." 



The system of School Gardens is free from many of the objections and 

 difficulties attaching to definite teaching of agriculture in the villages. The 

 masters teach the general principles of agriculture and horticulture by means 

 of plants which are in general unfamiliar to the villagers, and in which, consequently, 

 they do not at once invite comparison and contrast with work going on 

 elsewhere in the village. And there is no doubt that the general principles 

 can be equally as well taught with such plants as with rice, coconuts, or cassava. 

 At the same time, the School Garden practically fonns an Experimental Garden 

 for the village, in which the villager can see various " new products," and from 

 which he can get samples for trial, or seeds to cultivate. 



There are innumerable directions in which native agricultural methods 

 can be improved, and we can only give a few suggestions here. Thus the tillage 

 of the ground is by rude implements and by a great expenditure of physical 

 labour in proportion to the result achieved. Vast improvements are possible, 

 ;K'ii iffe have already dealt with this subject. (See number of " 1\ A." for April, 

 *' : 19'06, page 199.) 



