Miscellaneous- 



390 



[June 1907. 



lifting water, the profitableness of catch crops, an improved method of sowing seed, 

 or any one of the multitude of other things that concern the economical cultivation 

 of the land, is likely to do far more practical and immediate good than any mere 

 talker or writer on such subjects. There was an instance of what a single humble 

 ryot can do to influence local agricultural practice for the better quoted in the 

 Madras Mail, on June 20th. A correspondent of that journal in describing the 

 circumstances remarked :— 



"In the village of Varambium, situated two miles from Tiruturaipundi 

 (Tanjore), there lives a humble landholder, named Vadaraja Moodelly, who owns 

 about 10 acres of wet and 1J acres of dry land. Chance placed in his hands a copy of 

 Vivasaya-Vilakam, a Tamil Manual on improved agriculture brought out by Mr. G. 

 Rajagopala Naidu, Government Agricultural Inspector, who has written it in such a 

 clear and lucid style that every ploughman can understand it. It was from a close 

 study of this book that the man derived his main ideas and inspirations on improved 

 agriculture. The author of the book happening to be in this District, touring 

 through it as an emissary of the local Agricultural Association, the ryot obtained 

 from him further light and knowledge to supplement and amplify what he had 

 learnt from his book ; and thus equipped, he began to practice the improved methods 

 he had learnt, both in theory and in practice, from the Agricultural Inspector, 



"What seemed to have struck the man as the wisest thing to do was to prac- 

 tise intensive cultivation ; and in the carrying out of this idea, he was greatly encou- 

 raged by the information and guidance he received from the Government Agricul- 

 tural Inspector. He was convinced that the first essential required for the successful 

 practice of intensive cultivation was to provide himself with wells for irrigation of 

 dry crops in summer, when the supplies from the Cauvery system are not available 

 for the purpose. Bold and enterprising as he was, he soon constructed on his land 

 wells fitted with chrome-leather buckets for the requirements for the dry crops he 

 pi'oposed to raise, and thereby assured the prospect of his land, when cultivated in 

 summer with the aid of artificial irrigation, yielding twice as much before, when no 

 summer cultivation was practised. After his paddy harvest, when all his neigh- 

 bours' lands were lying fallow, he cultivated cholum as an experiment, and was 

 greatly rewarded when, from his one acre devoted to this crop, he obtained 360 

 Madras measures. He then raised a second dry crop of gingelly which yielded 50 

 measures ; at the same time, he paid attention to the collection and preparation of 

 manure from the materials available in his own holdings. He collected the dry 

 sheddings of his trees, and added them to his manure accumulations which he kept 

 covered with mud. To this a further supply was added with another layer of mud. 

 In the result he secured about 60 cart-loads of manure where he was getting 20 cart- 

 loads before ! The results obtained were an impressive object lesson for his neigh- 

 bours, some of whom began to follow his example in the utilisation of their leaf 

 sheddings for the preparation of field manure. 



" Another way by which he sought to improve the fertility of his land, and 

 in which the other villagers afterwards followed him, was by using the silt of the 

 village tank which he cleared for the purpose. In this way the silt of the 

 tank was removed and its dirty bed cleaned and water purified— a no small 

 hygienic advantage for the people of the village, apart from the rich replenishment 

 it affords to the soil. Thus the practice of collecting the sheddings from the trees 

 for manure, and clearing the silt of the tank for the soil s will, if more largely foil 

 lowed, as it promises to be in the light of the example set, be as much a service in the 

 cause of the agriculture of the village as in the sanitation of it, which, in rural parts, 

 is a thing entirely unknown. After cholum and gingelly, hemp was grown, and 

 thus, in a small area of one acre of dry land, a series of dry crops was raised in rota- 

 tion to the utter astonishment of the people in the neighbourhoods to whom the. 



