340 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October i, 1888. 
book-making, but a genuine contribution to the 
description of matters of great importance ; and 
the reason is that he carried to India a large fund 
of knowledge derived from experience and study, and 
a sincere desire to promote the -welfare of that vast 
dominion. His pages contain many photographs of 
cattle, the value of which is diminished by their imper- 
fections, due to the fact that the author only began to 
learn the photographic art£5 days before he embarked. 
If he failed in photography, he made a remark- 
able discovery in regard to cattle, alighting on a 
fact which apparently, though not unobserved by 
the natives, is new to the physiologists. He found 
that all the Indian cattle, a small percentage ex- 
cepted, however white the hair, have jet-black 
skins. The native farmers attribute weakness to 
those having white skins, and the inference he 
draws is that the black skins may help the cattle 
to bear the sun. Nor is it confined to them ; for the 
same peculiarity exists in sheep, pigs, and horses. 
Mr. Huxley, in a letter to the author, says 
that the fact he mentions " is of very great 
interest, as showing a hitherto unsuspected 
relation between colour and climate." Professor 
Helmholz cannot furnish any explanation of 
the phenomenon. Mr. Wallace, however, has a 
theory of his own. He thinks that while black 
absorbs heat in a greater degree than lighter colours, 
the black body is relieved by the moisture escaping 
in the form of vapour, which carries off " the sur- 
plus heat which the black skin absorbs over and 
above what it gives off by radiation." The question 
is one requiring a closer examination ; but, apart 
from its scientific interest, it is held to have some 
bearing on the attempts to improve Indian by an 
admixture of English cattle, which find no favour 
in the eyes of Mr. Wallace. Indeed, the kernel 
of his doctrine is that Indian agriculture can only 
be improved by applying English knowledge 
and thoroughness to Indian methods. " It is 
not difficult to see, " he writes, " and no 
practical man will wonder at it, that climate 
and general surroundings being so vastly different 
in India from those at home, British and Ameri- 
can practices must be unsuited to Indian conditions." 
Therefore he is of opinion that " the first step 
to be taken is the study of native agricultural 
practices," not to subvert, but to make them more 
effective ; and that is why he wants an Agricultural 
Department, which should deal with the whole 
subject. The thing has been tried and has failed, 
so far ; yet he would persevere, believing that a 
choice of competent men who went to work on 
the lines he has indicated would bring success. 
His scheme, however, is very large, and might be 
expensive ; yet it is based on the correct principle 
that Indian methods, as a rule, form still the best 
basis of any system or systems which should 
give the Indian farmers and breeders the 
benefit of Western science so far as it may be 
applicable or adaptable to the conditions of the 
East. At the same time, the demands on the 
Government are endless, the expert is not infalli- 
ble, and the problem is so difficult that even more 
money may be wasted. One thing is encouraging. 
It is that the natives will readily adopt real im- 
provements. A sugar-cane crusher is widely used ; 
the native tailor has taken kindly to the sewing- 
machine ; and a Hungarian has successfully secured 
a considerable European market for cigars and 
tobacco, not by substituting European for native 
practices, but by "improving native methods of 
growing, curing, and manufacture by the light of his 
superior and more extensive knowledge." So it 
is with machinery; it must be such as will suit the 
noil and climate, or it will be uselsss. The fact is 
that the various peoples of India do know Bom.etb.ing 
considerable about rearing and tending cattle and 
other creatures, and about cultivating and 
manuring land, because they have been so 
engaged for some thousands of years ; and 
the help we can supply, if at all, is by infusing into 
agriculture the spirit which pervades the British 
administration, thoroughness, and bringing to bear 
the advantages derived from science, guided by that 
wise caution which a scientific education is supposed 
to impart. It is even possible that a long and minute 
personal acquaintance with India might modify some 
of the strong opinions held by Mr. Wallace and other 
experts, and make them more keenly alive to the 
difficulties which beset the Indian Government, 
Not the least interesting chapter is that dealing 
with the wheat trade. There has been some appre- 
hension that the Indian ryot would supplant the 
British farmer. Mr. Wallace, examining the ques- 
tion on the spot, does not deny that Indian wheat 
will remain as a substantial item in our imports ; but 
he gives many solid reasons to show that the supply 
will not be boundless. Drought, diseases peculiar to 
the grain, frost, fogs, locusts, rats, and weevils plague 
the grower. " We must not forget," he says, "the 
likelihood of the yield decreasing and the quality de- 
generating by too frequent growth on the 
same land." The natives have already observed 
that wheat causes the soil to deteriorate, if not 
manured ; and, therefore, they cling to their system 
of rotation. In Russia and America the same law 
holds. In the latter country, " the line bounding 
the best wheat area has steadily moved westward,* 
and left, as a record of its course, the ruins of 
disused and deserted mills." In Southern Russia 
failure followed on an attempt to extract continu- 
ous crops of wheat from the same area. Then 
in India, as elsewhere, a deficient harvest reduces 
exports, and obviously a rise in freights has a 
similar effect even in years of plenty. Still, the 
power of sending forth wheat, the result of im- 
proved oceanic communication, is a boon to the 
Indian farmer. He may find another in the adop- 
tion of ensilage. On that point Mr. Wallace writes 
in a confident strain : — 
" If silage," he says, " is ever to be effectually estab- 
lished on a large scale for the benefit of a great com- 
munity, it will be in India. Although I am no advocate 
of the general adoptioD, under all circumstances, of 
systems of ensilage in this country, yet I believe 
the adverse climatic condition 0 met with in our Eas- 
tern Empire are such as could be overcome in a marked 
degree by making silage on an extensive scale. Modern 
invention and recent experience have produced methods 
by which ensilage can now be practised at a merely 
nominal expenditure of capital. It is not necessary to 
build an expensive house or silo. It is even unnecessary 
to dig a hole in the ground to contain it. All that 
is required is to build the grass into a good large stack 
on the surface of the earth, and tie it down tightly 
with galvauised steel-wire rope. Some who pretend 
to have a special gift in the matter of reading the 
native character, say that a native will never come to 
bury good food for cattle in a hole in the ground. 
Snrely they can have no objection to build it in a heap, 
where they can always have an eye upon it." 
He admits that bad results have followed from 
the use of silage in some instances, and that the 
soldiers are against it as horse provender; but 
he still contends that sufficient success has been 
attained to warrant the belief that this mode of 
economising grass-crops will be adopted in the end, 
and not only mitigate famines, but avert, or help 
to avert, " the impending evil of an over-crowded 
population." The book, indeed, is full of sugges- 
tions ; and, on the whole, Mr. Wallace's report 
looks decidely favourable to the future agricultural 
prospects of India, — all the more because the 
produce, animate and inanimate, is as vast and 
varied as the enormous dominion itself,— Spectator, 
