Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-07-16
BY
Frederic
]. Haskin.

scoops and poured to the ground, the
wind blowing the chaff away as it falls.
When there is not enough wind to use
the winnowing scoop, bamboo sleeves are
employed to sift the grain from the
chaff. The Indian farmers cultvating
implements are as archaic as his man
ner of threshing in the open field. His
pillow is a wedge-shaped block of hard
wood faced with iron, in front of which
projects a draught-pole attached to the
neck yoke of a pair of bumped bullocks
whose horns are almost as long as those
of the cattle that ranged the plains OF
the southwest in the old days AS
handle for the pillow there is an awkward
single upright piece behind Unlike the
plows used in more progressive coun-
tries for following, the Indian pillow loos
not turn the soil over, but merely loos-
ems 1t, the effect being somewhat similar
to that of a small double shovel pillow
used to split middles'' between corn
rows In the Ohio and Mississippi val
leys.
When a light plow Is used several plow-
ings are necessary to sufficiently break up
the soil for tillage, but all plows are not
light. Some are borne to the field upon
the farmers shoulder or carried under
his arm. Others are drawn by six yoke"
OF oxen and break the soil to depth of
a foot. Two obstacles stand in the way
of introducing modern turn furrow plows
in India. First, the Indian is averse
to showing disrespect to his most re-
mote ancestry by introducing innovations,
and in the second place he has little
money with which to buy the imple-
ments offered by American and European
manufacturers. Despite this, there is
of ri sinh al nd
for modern plows.
A distinctly Indian method of break
ing ground is by the use of a crowbar.
In southern India where the hot sun
bakes and cracks the soil, the crowbar
is inserted in the cracks and huge clods
are lowered out. Another means of
breaking up cracked soil is to dig out
the clods with a blade eighteen inches
long attached, like hoe, to a stout
wood handle. When the Indian farmer
spades his soil he uses a spade which
points toward the workman instead of
away from him, as it does in America or
Europe.
Compared to the Indian farm laborer
the man with the hoe in the United
States is a nabob. In some cases the In
dian laborer is a bond servant, as the
old-fashioned system of agricultural
bondage has not been entirely stamped
out. If he is in bondage he gets his
board and his loin cloth, which is all
that he wears, and the small perquisites
that commonly fall to slaves, such as
marriage expenses. II he is a free man
he is fed and paid in grain for his serv-
ices. He sometimes gets a few farthings
q day in cash instead of the old-fashion-
ed payment in produce.
During harvests, when American farm
ers are offering a kings ransom for men
and the wheat fields of the west are the
mecca of every able-bodied working man
who cares to leave home for high wages,
Indian laborers occasionally get a few
cents a day in cash, but generally speak
ing none but large employers pay cash.
HIS lack of opportunity to supply him
self with funds makes 1t practically i'm
possible for the Indian laborer to emf
CRATE to another country at his own eX-
pense Although many coolies in the
southern provinces go to Ceylon in boats
furnished by tea farmers who offer better
terms than can be secured at home, there
is not sufficient immigration of this kind
to affect the general agricultural equa7
ton, AA
India produces as many varieties of
crops as any other country. Rice. her
largest crop, covers aHnually an area as
large AS Indiana. Illinois and Maryland
combined. She has large areas of wheat,
sugar cane. cotton, tjute. tobacco, pep
per, spice, tea, coffee, chincona, and other
field crops. One thousand square miles of
soil is devoted to the culture of peoples
from which a steady stream Of opium has
flowed to Chinese markets since the IA
mous--or infamous-opium war was
fought to force the ports of China to
remain open to a vicious trade.
Many varieties of fruits flourish, and
there are large live stock industries de-
spite the fact that little meat is eaten
by the natives. Much land still remains
uncultivated, enough with that now till
ed, to support the entire population. 1t
is an axiom of economists that where
there is found a fertile country and
destitute people there is fundamental
error in government. Indians who pro-
test against existing conditions say that
the fundamental error in this country is
that the land. which provides 80 per cent
of the revenue, pays too large a share of
the expenses of maintaining the "scien-
tifc frontier which is a part of Great
Britain's policy with regard to Russia,
and other powers, beyond the confines of
his majesty's empire.