Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1913-08-28

- chimes imported from the United
states At the same time large irrigation canals
built by the government. hberating cultiva-
tors from eternal worry the prospects OF
rain. These changes are taking place with
startling rapidity The process is proceeding at
a snaiI's pace slowly that 1t Is hard for for
aigners to realize that the transition is going
However. each year more and more of the Hitter
ate farmers are sending their sons and daugh
fers to school, and each year they show more in
ferest in the demonstrations held on the expert
ment farms. and display less opposition to limo,
Fations. In a few districts the advancement is
already quite marked. This is especially true
of certain parts OF the Puniab-the province of
he Five Rivers, situated in northwestern India
which known the Canal colonies. There
several million OF land that twenty years
ago was barren waste, today have been con
gerted thanks to a marvellous irrigation scheme.
into important grain-producing region spread
Ing the fame of India wheat far and wide in the
world
The very first farm that | visited in the col
onies during a recent tour wildly revealed the
transformation of Indian rural conditions. In the
courtyard shaded by a spreading jujube tree.
stood reap!ng machine. In a mud shed, erected
especially for the purpose of protecting the farm
machinery. wound four chilled-steel plows two
al them made In the United States. On the door
OF the low-roofed yerandah the farmers son.
lad of about twelve, at the highest reckoning,
clad Dame Nature had dressed him at birth,
0uC Tor Scanty 0Feech-clOuE, St0Od turning the
wheel of q modern fodder-chopper, which cut
green chart tmillet1 in small shreds that fell
about him in a succulent shower.
After further travel and investigation among
the cultiyators living round about Lyallpur, the
largest city in the erstwhile waterless wilder
ness. which now, in the wake Of the water car
vied BY the Chenab canal. has become a paradise
for farmers, | found that the cultfgator whose
home / had first visited was not whit more
enterprising than scores OF others in the district
who today employing time and labor-Savine
machinery do all the work on their land. Wher-
ever I went I found agriculturists galore who
owned their own steel plows, harrows. cultivators
AID improved fodder-choppers. Occasionally l
would come across a reaper which was the prop
erty of a progressive individual who profted by
renting it to his neighbors at harvest time, At
one place / even found steam threshius
chine
Many causes have combined to make the farm
ers III the PunJab colonies progressive. IN the
first place they more or less entirely have been
cut of from their old moorings and have begun
life ali over again in strange locality. They
nave left some OF their ultra-eonservatism behind
them in the congested Punjab from which they
hailed, and the pioneer conditions that they
found confronting them in the region di-
vested them OF of their Unborn reac-
ton The I,yaapur agricultural experiment farm.
located in the very heart Of the settlebent, has
demonstrated to them the good results of deep
blowing with chjlled-steel plows. and the adyan-
age of using improved implements instead Of
farming in the cumbersome. bungling, od-time
way. 4 still more potent factor that is encour-
aging these farmers to modern machinery