October t, 1887.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 
24 x 
PLANTING IN MYSOEE. 
A Eeview.* 
By " Aberdonensis." 
The second volume deals more with Agriculture. 
We will quote :— 
"It is sufficient for your Anglo-Indian, as he 
toils along some dusty road, to glance at the 
Hindoo peasant with his plough on his shoulder, 
to see the faint furrow that is traced on the hard 
and uncongenial soil, to observe those greyhound 
bullocks of puny build and to conclude that, these 
being unlike English cart horses, plough and steam- 
engines, further examination is therefore needless ; 
and that as the Hindoo will slumber on as he has 
done for the last two thousand years it is hopeless 
to try and improve him. Some, however, being 
bolder and more energetic, are determined to arouse 
these slumbering peasants, and the rage for creat- 
ing a new state of things forthwith commences. 
No longer is the humble ryot to trace these faint 
furrows, nor to tread out the corn with his cattle, 
nor to burn his manure for fuel, nor to pound and 
grind his corn. The sanguino improver looks for- 
ward, and fondly hopes to see the day when the 
found of the threshing machine will be heard in 
the land, when ploughing shall result in a furrow 
broad and deep, when manure shall bo carefully 
stored and utilised instead of being burnt for fuel, 
and when the hum of the water-mill shall suc- 
ceed to the drudgery of pounding and grinding 
that corn which must now be converted into flour 
by the maidens and women of Hindustan. But the 
ardent mind rushes on to triumphs far transcend- 
ing these, till reaping machines and steam-ploughs 
are talked of as things that those now alive may 
live to see in daily use." 
Our author proves the fallacy of these theories 
by sneering at English farming in the first place. 
I do not see that that is good argument, still I 
agree with him that expensive theories break the 
bruised reed and quench the smoking Mas. If 
Mysore planters were to attempt to go in for Ceylon 
expenditure, lavish as it still is, we would " drown 
the miller" altogether. This applies to native 
agriculture. A great deal of their operations forms 
part of their daily life. Then as regards ploughing. 
The native plough is a capital business. The 
native plough costs a few annas when new. It 
suits the bullocks, and the land. Anything Eng. 
lish would put everything out of order. Why if 
you ploughed the paddy fields deeply you would 
come on a black stratum of what ? Ask experts. 
The yearly and half yearly grubbing about in the 
liquid mud sends down saline and mineral particles 
to tho depth the annual disturbance of mud 
reaches. Cut a section of paddy field and there is 
tho black line. To turn this up is to poison your 
ricu plants, llagie and dry paddy fields have a 
sour subsoil that should not be disturbed, Bemem- 
ber theso arc cereals not ti e is like colfee and tea. 
Tho whole drift o£ the discussion is "Let well 
alone." Don't force theories on the native. His 
surroundings arc the same as in tho time of 
Elijah the prophet, let his ways also remain the 
samo. Educato the young and they will think for 
themsolvos and see the light, their eyes having 
boon opened. 
I must say the native manuring is amusingly 
crude. In my daily walks I have to cross and 
rocross paddy Holds in country say like Balangoda, 
and [ seo little scatterings of ashes, straw, cattle 
dung, either bleaching in tho noontido sun or 
floating freely on tho flooded fields (alliteration) ! 
•Tho Exporionco of n Tlanter in the Juuglo of 
I^ y t a . 0^ , c J,, 1, * Kt>,Hrt u - K1Jiot - 3 v °l s - Chapman k 
Ball, 1871 
That is really very ludicrous. But they do their 
best and every little helps. 
Now for planting at lastl I must not allude to 
the hints as to making a nursery, or putting out 
plants to the readers of your journal, who bear the 
palm of being the finest agriculturists in the tropics. 
But softly. Have I not ofien remarked that this skill, 
this knowledge is sadly warped and twisted by the un- 
reasonable conditions of things, such as V. A.'s, 
Colombo Agents, rigid estimates, &c, &c. ? But 
still the training is grand and the work good. 
It is easy to see our author is not a very 
practical planter. Beyond very trivial details he 
does not go, but Hies off on tho smallest provoc- 
ation to general and broad views. But in these 
sometimes he is interesting. He comes to nhude, 
to clearing forest, and now I begin to sniff sul- 
phur, and snort for the battle ! I will quote : — 
"The next point that claims our attention is the 
clearing of the forest ; and here it is not too 
much to say that the experience and example of 
Ceylon planters have more than half ruined plum- 
ing in many parts of India, and a great deal more 
than half ruined it in Mysore and Coorg. In 
Ceylon the climate is oceanic ; in many districts 
rain falls more or less during eight months out of 
the twelve ; and in some, I believe, there is i-eidom 
a month that is certain to be without a show»r. 
But in India we have a climate ex ctly the re er e 
of all this. Wo have, it is true, a rainfall which 
is in the aggregate, I believe, equal to, or eve., 
exceeding, that of Ceylon; but then we have th 
rain in certain consecutive wet months, wfiicu a 
followed by many months of cloudless skies and 
parching winds. The south-west monsoon breaks 
along the western shores of India with terrific 
force towards the end of May, and from th ... 
up to the end of September we have almost c 
tinuous rain. In October the weather is she 
but towards the end of the month all sigi.o 
rain disappear, and it is quite a matter 01 chance 
whether a single drop of rain may fall, within the 
next four months and-a-half, and iu one season 
we had nearly six months without a single shower. 
But this is not all. The winds from November 
till early in March are mostly from the north- 
east ; and a glance at the map of India will show 
the reader that the breeze must sweep over many 
hundreds of miles before it reaches the Western 
Ghauts, and I need not waste words in explaining 
that a landwind which has swept over so many 
miles of scorching plain must necessarily be of the 
most arid and withering nature. And yet, in spite 
of these obvious objections to planting without 
shade and shelter, planters of the greatest Ceylon 
experience have been employed by Indian pro- 
prietors, and in many instances they have them - 
selves adopted an experience derived from a totally 
different climate, and an experience which they 
have obstinately refused to modify until taught, 
by the bitterest lessons, that a method of cultiv- 
ation suited to one climate may be entirely 
unsuited to another. But it frequently happens 
that errors once committed in the formation of 
coffee plantations cannot be easily remedied. It 
is easy to cut down shade and shelter, but it re- 
quires years to build it up again; and it is melan- 
choly to behold the uphill efforts of men to replace 
what, a few years before, they had irretrievably 
destroyed. Ceylon planters Hocked into Coorg, and 
a sufficient number found their way into Myso e 
to cause enormous loss to those who were too • i 
enough to adopt the experience that was earned 
in Ceylon, the greatest of coffee-planting ooantrieB. 
The fruits of that experience wo know too 
Taught by what was an ample and sufficient «• 
peiioucc iu u woiit and OOMDU tliuiat«, tuoao, 
