THE TROPICAL AQRIOULTURIST. 591 
February i, 1S92.] 
THE ORIGIN OP "PADDY." 
Eatnapura, Jan, 6ib. 
Dear Sin,— I should be glad if you would inform 
ma of the correct derivation of the word "paddy," 
as applied to grain grown in Ceylon. 
2.— Is the word in use in other countrieB, and when 
was it first used in Ceylon ?— Yours faithfully, 
0. S. Y. 
THE PRICE OF PEKOE SOUCHONG. 
Colombo, Jaa. 8th. 
Dear Sir, — I have some difficulty ia understanding 
the meaning of "Why" 's last letter, but at any rate 
he does not answer my statements. 
With regard to what he says about the buying 
standard which I mentioned, why ho should suppose 
instructions to buy tea of equal quality to a i:ample 
sent (as a standard) mean " buy quotable Pekoe 
Souobong at 25 cents " (whatever that may mean) 
passes my comprehension, I understand it to mean 
buy tea to match the standard eent, not to match 
" quotable Pekoe Souchong," or else why send a 
Btaadard ? 
But I will not waste more of your valuable space. 
1 oHered to buy tea of quality considerably below that 
of your standard, at more money than "Why" tells me 
it is selling at in Colombo ; but though that is more 
than a month ago I have not had a single package 
offered me. This is I think sufficient answer. — Yours 
faithfully, A BUYER. 
RICE CULTIVATION ; A PLEA FOR THE 
GOYIYAS AND THEIIl HUSBANDRY. 
Veyangoda, Jan, 8th; 
Dear Sm, — Pleage permit mo to have my httle 
say on what you and your correspondente have written 
on the above eubjeot. 
I must preface my remarks by observing that what- 
ever the resulta obtained by Mr. Green and Agricul- 
tural Instructors, they have no practical bearing on 
the justice or otherwise of the paddy tax. All that 
they prove are the possibilities in the way of yi^ld 
by the adoption of improved methods. These are not 
general, oad the yield of paddy cultivation ia, except in 
favorable localitiep, what was represented to Wis Es- 
cellency during hia travels. The queslion, therefore, 
resolves itself into whether the recovery or rather 
exuotion of a tythe from fields whose average yinld 
is 5 fold, is a cruel and grinding tax, or no. The 
Select Committee of the IjegisliUive Council recom- 
mended, if I mistake not, the exemption of lands 
yielding leis than 5 fold, and yon have ever heartily 
endorsed their recomraendatious, therefore you must 
be of opinion that the coutinuanoe of this exaction 
from fields yieldinff these miserable returns is cruel, 
or at least unjust.* 
Now to the e litorinl comments on the letter of 
" W. A. D. S." I do not think anything he has 
written warrants the conclusion that the small propor- 
tion of plants that results to the namber of seeds sown 
is due, as you assert, to carelessness or worse in 
harvesting and prosorving seed paddy. There is 
DO branch of paddy caltivation operations to 
which the goyiija pays so great attentioci as tho pre- 
paration and Btnrago of seed paddy. Bat hardly one 
per cent of the £/oy///ns grows sufficient pa iily to reserve 
for seed. 'Ihe foad grauarit's belou;,' to the minor 
headmen or to the exteiisivo field owner, a very stnuU 
proportion indeed ol (he village populatiou. Where 
I_ re tide I know only one man for a group of 5 or 0 
\i la^ea, who is in a position to store and sell .seed 
paddy. Wlien his stock fsils, I know people go as 
f«r a^ Hiinnratgoda to ptooure si'ed paddy, f It mwt-t 
* With inst this (|iialifioation, th^t tho^veTy ex- 
emptiiMi will Ilea prcminm on bad bnsbixndry. — Kd /'. .1. 
t Thon thu ([nality o( the seed depends upon o"e 
jBiU hero and there, and not to the care attributoij 
to tbo goyiyas geuerally.— Ep. 'i\ 4, 
surely bo known ito you that a certain proportion only 
of every bind of seed germinates. The poporlion is not 
fixedand vnrieswith cironmstaiices. The gnyiija makea 
allowance for that, as well as for what rots by becoming 
too deeply embedded in the mud,* for what is washed 
away by the rains aid for what is eaten up by birda, 
when he sows the quantity he does per acre. 
The system of paddy cultivation as practised by 
the natives may be unscientific, but it has not been bo 
denounced by Hughes, Wallace or Voeleker — but no one 
with an intimate acquaintance with the preparation of 
fields will call it "careless" as j ou have done, 
nor is it c )rrect to say that ploughing is a mere 
stirring of a few inches of water-saturated mad. 
Thero is no doubt that one of the advantages of 
the iron plough is its ability to plough land 
when dry ; but it neither pulverizes the soil nor stirs 
the subsoil without bringing it to the surface. In 
fact the complaint against it is that it leaves the 
laud with large clods on the surface, which it is ex- 
pensive to pulverize, and it brings to the surface 
sour subsoil. 
I am very strongly of opinion that the increased 
yield resulting from the experiments of the Instruc- 
tors, is due chiefly to the fields being ploughed at 
the beginning of the dry season and being exposed 
for a month or two to atmospheric influences. I think 
the introduction of a "cultivator" or subsoiler will 
yield better result^, in more senses than one, than 
those of the iron plough. It will be lighter than the 
plough, and therefore more suitable for village oattle. 
lu appearance and action it will closely re- 
semble the native plough, and it will work deeper 
than the iron plough, without bringing the subsoil to 
the surface. 
A critic should be certain of his facts and not lay 
himself open to a charge of misrepresentation.f No 
one, as far as I aoj aware, cited Professor Wallace 
astaiust dry and deep ploughing. He told me personally 
that he was no believer in the iron plough in paddy 
cultivation, that the native plough suited our special 
circumstances and that with a little improvement, 
which he promised to effect, it will be a very useful 
little implement. He also told ijie that the artificial 
aeration of the soil was not so necessary in a tropical 
laud as in Europe, and that the innumerable fissures 
he saw in p;iddy fields did naturally what had 
to be done by an expensive process in Europe. He 
denounced neither deep nor dry ploughing in my 
hearing. 
Dry cultivation of piddy has no doubt all the 
advantages enumerated by Mr. Elliott and more, but it 
struck me as a very slovei ly system. The fields are 
not as carefully prepared as in wet cultivation, the beds 
are nob smoothed nor the weeds got under the soil. 
That the paddy sods of Ceylon have not been sys- 
tematically analyzed ia a reproach, that ought to be 
the aim of the School of Agriculture to remove. 
The system hitherto practised of statiouing an 
Instructor in a village for a few months and then 
removing him to another far removed from it, is I 
think a waste of pubfic money and of valuable time 
and energy. We know that even with a progressive 
and enlightened people, no radical reforms can be 
made except their advantages are constantly demon- 
strated. In fact "pegging away" is necessary for all 
reforms. Can it be imagined that a conservative class 
like the goyiyas can be made to give up time-honored 
customs and lake to revolutionary methols of pad ly 
caltivation by Instructors flitting about the country ? 
I lately advocated elsewhere the appointment of an 
Instructor to every Korale, whose duty will be to esta- 
bhsh experimental cultivation of high and low lands in 
connection with every village school. These stations to 
be under the immediate supervi.sioa of the school mas- 
ters. Whether as a result of that or not I know not 
but I was glad to hoar tbo Director of Public Instruc-^ 
tiou at the roeant pii/.e-giving ju oonun otiog with' the 
* Would not soil less iu the condition o 1 mnd be 
better for the seed and also for the resultiuR crop ?— 
Ed. 't . a . 
,^"^J^'>'"V'®^^'°^*>ou"e, togur oorrespoudeut "W. A. 
