March 1907.] 



171 



Miscellaneous, 



with dry cultivation as for sowing paddy, and has been modified for the purpose by 

 the ingenuity of the Tamil ryot. Those who travel between Egmore and Tindivanam 

 on the South Indian Railway may occasionally see paddy sown beautifully in lines 

 with the gorru katappai. The Telugu ryot's own modification of the gorm in the 

 Deccan districts for sowing paddy is not so ingenious as that of the Tamilian who 

 borrowed the idea of the drill from the former. For instance, the kurigi nellu or the 

 bailu nellu (dry paddy) of Kosgi is sown by a comparatively clumsy and inefficient 

 drill. 



There are people who say :— " Only convince the ryot that a given implement 

 is really advantageous, and he is sure to adopt it at once." In the first place, the 

 ryot is not open to conviction. He is too lethargic to take the pains to properly 

 compare things. Otherwise the gorru and the guntika, which have been within the 

 view of the Sriperumbudur ryot for more thau seven decades, would have been 

 adopted by thousands. It is no more easy to convince the ryot than to teach 

 swimming to a man who cannot be induced to plunge into water, or to awake a man 

 who only pretends to be asleep. The threshing stone roller which has proved so 

 advantageous for threshing, jonna (the great millet) in the Cuddapah, Anantapur 

 and Kurnool districts has not, during the three decades after its invention by the 

 ryots themselves, found its way into the Bellary district, excepting its adoption by 

 the Reddi of Molagavalli ; nor has the heavy cotton soil plough, which is being used 

 by thousands in the Bellary, Ah'ir and Adoni taluks, found its away into the other 

 districts (excepting the Uravakonda division) for use in similar soils. About ten 

 years ago a plough of the kind was seen rusting under an old tree in a certain village 

 in the Kurnool district. The owner, an educated ryot, who had given up quill- 

 driving in favour of plough-driving, promised to bring it into regular use if shown 

 how to work it. This was done. The advantages of the plough were so well under- 

 stood by the man that he himself explained them to the spectators. But the plough 

 was taken back to its place under the tree, and there I saw it five years afterwards 

 in fatal communion with the oxygen of the air as before. I daresay that the man 

 was really convinced of the advantages of the implement, let alone his own ad- 

 mission. Apathy accounts for its disuse. 



It is well known that the women belonging to certain classes in Madura and 

 Tinnevelly disfigure their faces by enlarging the holes in the lobes of their ears to 

 such a degree, by putting on numerous heavy iron rings during their girlhood, that 

 the looes often touch the shoulders and sometimes descend below them. Many a 

 young woman is no doubt convinced how hideous it is. But does conviction avail 

 against custom ? It is not all that will at once follow the example of a young 

 woman in Koilpattu, who recently heriocally cured the hideousness of her ears by 

 submitting to a surgical operation, so as to reduce the holes in her ear-lobes to nor- 

 mal dimensions and adapt them for the wear of diamond earrings so as to make her 

 agreeable beyond recognition. As in ordinary life, so in agriculture, custom has 

 a very tenacious hold on people and is inimical to the introduction of reforms. 



If one enters a ryot's house in any of the Tamil districts, he sees that all- 

 sufficient plough, and he may see, besides, mamuti, the kalaikaltu, or small hand- 

 hoe, and the old fashioned sickle. In the Deccan districts, on the other hand, a 

 large part of a Reddi's house is set apart for his Icoramutti, or collection of imple- 

 ments and tools. One can see there not only the plough, the guntika, the bamboo 

 seed-drill, a papatam, or bullock hoe, and other draught implements, but also 

 specific kinds of each such class of implements suited to specific kinds of work, 

 such as the ontala, rentala, and pedda medakas (ploughs), pedda (heavy), chinna 

 (small), bara, (long), mirapa (for chillies), patti (for cotton, etc.), guntikas (for 

 scuffle), chinna gorru, bara gorru and other kinds of seed-drill with seed-cups 

 (sadigam) of different kinds for sowing the seeds of different crops such as the, 



