TlXdian Arjrlculliire in its Physical Aspects. 
45 
among the Hindus, however, are several tribes and castes 
whose associations are with cattle, though for the most part 
with milking and breeding herds. Along the river-sides the 
Mahommedans predominate, and thither and into the forests the 
plough and the milking cattle are driven in the height of the 
hot season. 
Without some knowledge of what is implied in the word 
oaste, one is unable to appreciate the enormous influence this 
exerts upon the people themselves and upon their agriculture. 
At the same time, so complex a subject is the one of caste that 
without a very extensive knowledge of the country it is impos- 
sible to understand it. But that among the Hindus certain 
castes and races are exceptionally good and others exceptionally 
bad cultivators remains a fact, and that the differences are fre- 
quently to be traced entirely to the respective castes is shown 
by the existence side by side in the same village of superior and 
inferior cultivation. Certain castes, as the Brahmins and 
Rajputs, consider it derogatory to engage in manual labour 
themselves, and they employ hired labour ; low castes, such as 
the Kachhis, on the contrary, do not scruple to even use the 
night-soil of town or village, which higher castes disdain to 
handle, and they are liberally rewarded in a magnificent resulting 
cultivation. Not only are there these differences, but there are 
castes who are noted for the special branches of agriculture 
which they follow : such are the growers of vegetables, the 
market-gardeners, the cattle breeders, the graziers, the milk sup- 
pliers. Each man follows the vocation of his particular caste, 
and nothing will raise him out of it into a higher one, or make 
him, if a cultivator, depart from the practice of that caste. The 
Mahommedan, or, among the Hindus, the low caste chamar or 
the " sweeper " class, may touch a bone, or collect bones for 
export, but to the higher caste Hindu this would be an unclean 
act. 
In dealing, therefore, with the agriculture of India, points 
such as these, and many like them, which do not enter into our 
English agricultural conditions, have to be taken into account. 
True it is that the influence of caste is beginning to weaken under 
the spread of education and under the necessity of making the 
land yield more liberally for the supply of food to its overcrowded 
population ; but it remains a powerful factor still, and one which 
can only be very gradually removed. 
If inherent differences among the people themselves, differ- 
ences which can only slowly disappear, affect the agriculture, 
how much must the latter be ruled by that striking feature, the 
Indian climate, one which neither the State nor the people cai) 
