Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1913-08-29

States. At the same time, large irrigation canalS,
built by the government. are liberating cultiva-
tors from eternal worry over the prospects of
rain These changes are taking place with
startling rapdity. The process is proceeding at
a snails pace, so slowly that 1t Is hard for Tor
eigners to realize that the transition is going on.
However, each year more and more of the Hitter
ate farmers are sending their and daugh-
ters to school, and each year they show more in
terest in the demonstrations held on the expert
ment farms, and display less opposition to limo
vations In few districts the advancement is
already quite marked This is especially true
of certain parts of the Punjab-the province of
the Five Rivers, situated in northwestern India
which are known as the Canal colonies. There
several million acres Of land that twenty years
ago was barren waste, today have been con-
.verted, thanks to marvellous irrigation scheme,
into an important grain-producing region spread
ing the fame of India wheat far and wide in the
world.
The very first farm that i visited in the col
onies during a recent tour wildly revealed the
transformation of Indian rural conditions. In the
courtyard, shaded by spreading juJube tree,
stood a reaping machine. In a mud shed, erected
especially for the purpose of protecting the farm
machinery wound four chilledsteel plows two
of them made in the United States. On the floor
OF the lowroofed verandah the farmers son,
lad OF about twelve, at the highest reckoning,
clad as Dame Nature had dressed him at birth,
but for scanty breech-clout, stood turning the
wheel of q modern fodderchopper, which cut
green chart (milletl in small shreds that fell
about him In a succulent shower
After further travel and investigation among
4she 4cultivators living round about Lyallpur. the
largest city In the erstwhile waterless wilder
ness which now in the wake of the water car
ried by the Chenab canal, has become paradise
for farmers, | found that the cultivator whose
home | had first visited not whit more
enterprising than scores OF others in the district
who today are employing time and laborsaving
machinery to do all the work on their land. Wher
ever / went / found agriculturists galore who
owned their own steel plows. harrows. cultivators
and improved fodderchoppers. Occasionally l
would come across a reaper which the prop
erty of a progressive individual who profted by
renting II to his neighbors at harvest time At
one place | even found a steam threshing
chine.
Many causes have combined to make the farm
ers in the Punjab colonies progressive. In the
first place they more or less entirely have been
cut of from their old mornings, and have begun
life all over again in strange locality They
have left some of their ultra-conservatism behind
them In the congested Punjab from which they
hailed, and the pioneer conditions that they
found confronting them in the new region d.
vested them of some more of their Unborn reac
ton. The Lyallpur agricultural experiment farm.
located In the very heart of the settlebent has
demonstrated to them the good results of deep
blowing with chilledsteel plows, and the advan-
farming in the cumbersome, bunglng. old-time
aging these farmers TO use modern machinery