The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-05-09

double his yield by manures? He Ger.
tainly employs none which are arti'
fetal and imported. like the nitrates;
but he knows what he is about when 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 gauri are just as precious to
the soil as the natural commodity un-
burned. But practically the filth is
never seriously mended in India, except
close to the villages and for sugar cane.
opium, or garden crops, unless it be
by burning and scratching into the red
or gray soil some jungle branches and
dead leaves.
Neither have western machinery mol
scientific farming methods found any
success. What can Sussex, or even Mas
sachusetts, do with the husbandman
who viii insist on carrying pillow or
wheelbarrow upon his head, and whose
fathers for 5000 years past have stood
upon pointed stick drawn by buffalo
in order to make two-inch furrow.
The Hindoo lives directly and placidly
from the bountiful hand of Heaven.
which he calls "Indra." Dwelling in his
village he tills only 50 much of the cul-
turable jungle Us can be easily reached
morning and evening by his slow-moT-
ing cattle He has not the capital nor
the mind for costly western lmple-
ments; and his winnowing machine is
still and always the wind blowing from
heaven. Jowarri and bajri are for the
humble; wheat, -four and rice for the
Brahmans and the rich, with plenty of
dial and pulses to make up for the meat
which the strong Sahib and savage
Mahometan devour. Such is his simple
fare millet cakes and boiled leaves of
rape and grain with Mhowa fruit, man
go. rlantain and CO >anut-by these the
blaIneless existence of the Hindoo sus-
tains its innocent span. Fowls and eggs
are held by most in abhorrence; no
cheese is so much as known; and about
60,000,0 600 of that wonderful people
never taste animal food at all, unless In
the shape of milk, curds and CHI, which
last is clarified butter
Thus all hangs upon Indra and the
rain II the southwest monsoon is ex-
ceptionally late in setting in, or prema-
ture in its cessation, or scanty and ir-
regular, or excessive during its period
of duration, great mischief may be done,
and any failure of the rain at this sea-
son is damaging not only to the crops
then growing but also to the winter
crops which are sown after the mon
soon stops, and to which a thoroughly
moistened seed bed is essential. The
early and late falls are looked for to
soften the soil and admit of the blowing
preparatory to sowing the kharif in the
one case and the rabbi in the other, and
delay in putting in the seed beyond
certain period is prejudicial to the
growth and maturing of the crop. The
millets and pulses of the kharif crop are
hardy plants, and can bear great deal
of irregularity; but any partial cessa-
ton of the rainfall exceeding a month
in duration, OF, as it is called, "a break"
in the rains Of the monsoon, will do
them great injury, especially if, as Is
sometimes the case during such a break,
q hot, dry wind also sets in. Rice is more
delicate, and perishes if the plants are
either too deeply submerged or their
roots left dry for a few days, and for
this season the winter rice of Bengal
and the sea coast is precarious crop,
dependent on the continuation Of rain
fall in September and October, after the
monsoon has generally ceased in upper
India.
The self-respect of Hindoos is prodigi-
GUS; and they lose face" in applying 20
any save kinsman for food, which, in
deed, as many Americans will know, is,
especially If thus obtained, uneatab BILE
for high castles when not lawfully pre-
pared. A Hindoo servant, whom de-
sired to cure surTeptitiously of his
deadly weakness after fever by beef tea.
told me, quite sweetly, that he would
have poisoned me, upon recovery, if
had carried out the idea. Again, the
purlah- nashin, tho curtain dweilers,"
those women who must not be seen in
ppblic-a foolish fashion adopted from
the Mogul, and never really Aryan-
cannot announce their misery, nor take |
an aims bowl to the relief camp. There |
is vast category of these-women and |
children-who begin slowly and GER
tainly TO perish as soon as the famine |
begins, and who must and will succumb |
at last, unreached by the great hand OF
the government, or only reached when |
despair has brought them-haggard,
last meal, which is desperately craved |
for, but the very eating of which is
poison to the enfeebled and liberated |
Edwin Arnold, in North |
American Review.
Peter Casson is a butcher in the pro |
h;hit;on town of FscoDdido He also has !