2)6 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[October i, 1890* 
gular profession of a low caste of Hindus — 
Chamars — in the central and western districts of 
Bengal proper, and is gradually extending to the 
outer parts of Bengal, in proportion to the in- 
creasing demand of the Calcutta mills, and the 
extension of railway communication. Heaps of 
raw bones collected for transport to Calcutta may 
now be seen along the railway and principal river 
routes of Bengal. Bones are also collected by the 
indigo-planters of Behar for use in their indigo 
land. Many of them have erected mills for 
grinding them to dust. In Lohardugga many 
tea-planters make their own bone-meal, and use 
it as a manure for tea-plants. The bones are 
collected locally, and coarsely ground by the dhenJd. 
The fragments are not so fine as are turned 
out by the mill, nor are they required to be very 
fine for a slow-growing perennial like tea. The 
bones brought into Calcutta are bought up for 
manufacture into bone-meal. There are four or 
five bone-grinding mills at the present time in 
and near Calcutta. Vv^'ith the exception of a com- 
paratively small quantity of bone-meal sent out to 
tea-gardens, the whole of the output of the mills 
is destined for export. 
(2) Pkice of Bone-meals in Calcutta. — The price 
of bone-meal ranges from E2 to E2-8 per maund. 
There are several sorts (about 10 in number) 
distinguished according to degrees of fineness and 
purity, the best of which resembles satu or parched 
barley meal, both in fineness and colour. 
(3) Means op producing Bone-meal cheaper 
IN Bengal. — Eaw bones as they come from the 
Chamars may be bought in the mofussil at eight 
annas per maund or less. In the tea-gardens in 
and near Eanohi they are delivered by the collectors 
at the rate of five annas a maund. At Dumraon 
in Shahabad bones have been collected at a coat 
of four annas a maund, and at Julpigoree Mr. 
Donald Sunder, Settlement Officer of the Western 
Dooars, has arranged with Chamars to have bones 
delivered at the jail at a price not exceeding six 
annas a maund. 
A comparative trial was made in the Seebpore 
farm as to the relative merits, in grinding bones 
to dust, of the dhenlci and an English-made bone- 
mill supplied to the department by Messrs. T. 
E. Tomson & Company. The results were that 
it cost two annas a maund less to prepare 
bone-meal with the dhenJci than with the mil). 
Under the circumstances the dhenJd can be safely 
recommended as a cheap and effective means of 
crushing bones. If ryots ever take to the use of 
bone-meal for manure, they will not have recourse 
to complicated machinery, but will use the dhenki 
in very much the same way that they grind wheaten 
and barley flour themselves, rather than buy the 
machine-made article. 
(4) Experiment.s in Bone-meal through Eyots. 
— Numerous experiments to test the efficiency of 
bone-meal as a manure for paddy have been made 
in Burdwan and Hooghly. It is not always possible 
to show the results of the experiments in bone-meal 
in the form of a statement comparing the outturn of 
plots ma.'/ured with it, with that of unmanured plots, 
f jr these reasons — (1) that in most of the experi- 
ments boiio-meal was mixed with saltpetre, hide-salt, 
Ac., so that it cannot be ascertained how much of 
tlic increased yield was due to each of these manures ; 
and (2) that the experiments made by ryots are 
devoid of precision and oannot be thoroughly relied 
upon. The best guide to the value of this manure 
would bo the evidence of the ryots who have tried it. 
In the Annual Eeport lor 1880 87 mention was made 
of iho steadily incitusing demand for boue-meal in 
villages when; it had bem u.-od in the preceding 
year. Tlio results of the ryots’ experiments in this 
year were also encouraging, as the figures given in 
the Appendix H. show. They give an average in- 
crease of 570 lb. of paddy per acre obtained by 
manuring with 240 lb. of bone-meal. The money- 
value of the increase in a year of ordinary prices 
may be taken as E9-8, while the price of 240 lb. of 
bone-meal applied is only EG at its present high price 
in Calcutta. Experiments made with bone- 
meal on paddy, did not succeed in 1887-88 owing 
to great deficiency of rainfall ; and in the follow- 
ing year (1888-89) they totally failed on account 
of floods, but the ryots who made the ex- 
periments appear to be very much interested. 
Last year an application was received from 
a single person for fifty maunds of bone-meal, 
which was supplied and paid for by the applicant. 
Inquiries were made in some of the villages in which 
bone-meal had been distributed in previous years. 
The testimony of the ryots and farmers was, accord- 
ing to Mr. Basu, nearly uniformly to the effect — ■ 
(Ij — That bone-meal is quite as good as manure for 
paddy, potatoes and sugarcane (the chief crops of the 
village) as oilcake. 
(2) — But that its effect does not last for more than 
a year, and according to some, a field manured with 
bone-meal will yield heavily in the first year only. 
(3) — That better results were obtained in sandy than 
in clayey soils. 
In Hooghly and Burdwan oilcakes (castor-cake 
in particular) are now being very largely used, as 
manures not only for sugarcane, potatoes and 
various vegetable crops, but also for paddy, the 
chief staple of these districts. Although bone- 
meal is acknowledged to be a good manure, 
oilcake is believed to be superior to it in many 
respects. Besides that it is much cheaper than 
bone-meal, it is open to no objection on the 
ground of caste feeling. Until, therefore, bone- 
meal can be offered at cheaper rates than 
oilcake, there is no hope of its general 
adoption in native agriculture. — Pioneer, Aug. 18th. 
INDIA'S POVERTY^^ND HOW IT CAN 
BE REMEDIED. 
Here is the truth, plainly spoken: — 
A correspondent writes to the Madras Tines , — the 
poverty of India is becoming proverbial. In order to 
mifigete this rising povti ty of India, there is a loud 
demand for technical institutions, in order to revive 
the old industries of this great empire which are now 
on the decay, and to encourage the arts in esse and in 
posse. The Good British Government, which has al- 
ready conferred several priceless boons on India, is 
also opening technical institution for the anaelioration 
of the poverty. striebsu classes. India is thought to 
be the poorest country in the world. When a careful 
examination is made as to her real position, one is 
constrained to say that it is the richest in the world; 
but the apathy of the natives, in commercial enterprises 
and in agricultural pursuits, has rendered this Empire 
the poorest in the world. Let us therefore briefly 
examine the causes which underlie this poverty. There 
are many men here who have amassed a good deal of 
wealth in different walks of life. The wealth so 
accumulatod by them is, as a general rule, spent m 
ways which are of very little benefit to the country. 
Some of these wealthy people spend a mint of money 
in taking long pilgrimages, in erecting costly temples, 
in performing the marriages of their infant sons and 
daughters, some in preparing costly jewels, and some in 
immoral ways ; besides these there i.s another set of 
superstitious people who keep the money in their iron 
safes and actually worship it ; if the money that is 
spent in all these ways is laid out in such com- 
mercial enterprises us opening of Banks, the opening of 
spinning and we '.viug c.jmpanies, and other mechanical 
and engineering worts, how usefal and beneficial 
would these be iu reducing the powerty of India. 
The mineral resources of this fertile land are great. 
It boaslB of gold, iron and coal fields and several 
