The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-03-18
 THE HINDOO FARMER.

He Finds No Use for Western Agricul-
 tural Methods-Caste and the Fam inc.
 To feed only the northwest and Oudh takes fifteen and half million acres; to feed Bengal, flftyfour and half i millions; to feed Bombay, tWenty-four and a half millions, and to feed Ma dras, thirty-two million acres of prop erly watered lands! The population of these-only portion, remember, of the vast country-Would mount up to at | least one hundred and fifteen millions of souls, and, speaking generally, they all depend in less or greater degree upon those timely kharif and rapl rains. Americans, with huge areas of soil still happily left to conquer, may ask why the area of cultivated ground is not increased. The reply is that, enormous albeit Hindostan appears In extent upon the maps, there is not much good ground remaining to be taken up. There are rich regions where the climate is deadly as in the Terai; there are poor tracts where population | is scanty; but neither for the old-fash- | toned Hindoo peasant nor for modern men with new methods and machinery does there exist any considerable mar | gin of Uaused soil,
 | Could, then, the native cultivator double his yield by manures? He cer- tainly employs none which are artifi- cial and imported, like the nitrates; but he knows what he is about with his own simple materials, and when high authorities mock him for using up all | the cattle droppings for fuel cakes he | laughs silently because he knows that the ashes of gaur are just as precious to the soil as the natural commodity unburned But practically the tilth is never seriously mended in India, except close to the villages and for sugar cane, | opium or garden crops, unless 1t be by burning and scratching into the red or gray soil some jungle branches and dead leaves.
 | Neither have western machinery nor l scientific methods found any success. | What can Sussex, or even Massachu- setts, do with the husbandman who will insist on carrying plough or wheel l barrow upon lis head, and whose fath- CTS for three thousand years past have stood upon a pointed stick drawn by a 1 buffalo in order to make two-inch fur row. The Hindoo lives directly and ! placidly from the bountiful hand of heaven, which he calls Indra. Dwell ing in his village he tills only so much of the culturable jungle as can be easily
 reached morning and evening by his slow moving cattle. He has not the capital nor the mind for costly western | implements; and his winnoWing ma | chine is still and always the wind blow l ing from heaven. Jowarri and bajri are for the humble; wheat, flour and rice for the Brahmans and the rich
 with plenty of dal and pulses to make up for the meat which the strong Sa- hib and savage Mahometan devour Such is his simple fare millet-ca and boiled leaves of rape and gram with Mhowa fruit, mango, plantain and cocoanut-by these the blameless exist ence of the Hindoo sustains it's innocent
 span. Fowls and eggs are held by mos | in abhorrence; no cheese is so much as | known; and about one hundred and eighty million of that wonderful people never taste animal food at all, unless ir
 the shape of milk, curds and ghi which last is clarified butter.
 Thus all hangs upon Indra and the rain. If the southwest monsoon is eX. ceptionally late in setting in or prema-
 tGre in its cessation, or scanty and ir-
 regular, or excessive during it's period of duration, great mischief may be done, and any failure of the rain at this season is damaging not only to tn, crops then growing, but also to tho
 winter crops which are sown after the monsoon stops, and to which a thor oughy moistened seed bed is essential
 The early and late falls are looked fol
 to soften the soil and admit of the ploughing preparatory to sowing the kharif in the one case and the rabi ir
 the other, and delay in putting in thu seed beyond certain period is prejudi- cial to the growth and maturing of the crop. The millets and pulses of the
 lIharif crop are hardy plants, and car
 bear a great deal of irregularity; but any partial cessation of the rainfall ex
 ceeding a month in duration, or, as it is
 called, "a break" in the rains of the
 monsoon, will do them great injury
 especially if. as is sometimes the cas-
 during such break, a hot, dry wint
 also sets in. Rice is more delicate, anC
 perishes if the plants are either too
 deeply submerged or their roots left dr.
 for a few days, and for this reason the
 winter rice of Bengal and the sea coas
 is a precarious crop, dependent on tht
 continuation of rainfall in Septembel and October, after the monsoon ha
 generally ceased in Upper India.
 The self-resDect of Hindoos is prodi
 gious; and they lose face" in applying ! E~v-v~Vvvvvvyvvvvvvvvvvvv