The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-12-24

of India The Madras presidency is the only providence wholly tropical, while all the northern provinces are subtropical. Conditions of soil vary as much as the climate and race.
 For many years attempts to improve cultivation were sporadic and local It
 was assumed for that novel methods
 were probably foreign to the gepius of the people as well as i'll adopted to the soil and other conditions; and it is only
 recently that the government became
 alive to the enormous developments which are possible.
 Prior to 1904, when Lord Curzon ini- tiated a properly organized agricultural department, development depended much
 on the idiosyncracies of the local gov ernments and such endeavors as were made to improve methods were far from being either scientific or consistent. In 1901, however, partly with the assistance
 of a public spirited American citizen, Henry Phipps of Chicago Lord Curzon
 was able to establish a properly or
 ganized staff of agricultural officers with headquarters at Pusa in Bihar,
 and organize provincial agricultural es- tablishments. At Pusa, where the Gen. tral Research institute is established and where there is a large experimental farm,
 F officers are employed and it was to
 
 that the benefaction of MT. Phipps was devoted
 "The inadequacy of the present staff is fully realized and there is at present
 under consideration scheme for an immediate increase. It is hoped we shall be able to place every major province
 in a condition of self-continence in re-
 gard to research matters and also con
 siderably to strengthen their teaching side
 But for some period after the war there
 will be many demands upon the govern- ment's purse and the development of the
 agricultural department is only one of the many directions in which progress will be demanded.
 ''We rely at present upon two main methods demonstration farms and yer nacular instruction in agriculture. I am told that in America demonstration farms very largely consist of the farms of in- dvidual farmers lent for the purpose and farmed by the farmer himself under the general advice and control of an agricul- tural expert. Here in India it is not al- ways easy to persuade a farmer to modify his methods in accordance with
 the advice of officers of the department. We have therefore. established demon- stration farms at different centers which
 are controlled by the administrative staff 1 of the department under the immediate management of a farm superintendent. Tn the case of some crops very con- | siderable improvement has resulted. Where the Indian farmer is persuaded
 that practical advantage results from | adopting new methods, he is by no means l backward. In the Punjab, where the | farmer is unusually well off and re- 1 markedly intelligent he has readily taken 1 to an American variety of cotton which l has been proved to be suited to the cli- l matic conditions There Is reason to hope ] that the country variety of the short 1 staple cotton will almost disappear from | the Junjab in favor of this American va riety. Also, more than one variety of
 wheat has been established the best of l which we hope soon to see grown on a 1 very large scale in supersession of infe- 1 rior articles.
 We are indebted to an American mis- l sion situated in the United Provinces near l Allahabad under Samuel Higginbotham. | MT. Higginbotham is an enthusiastic I agriculturalist and has succeeded in popu- 1 larizing improved methods We have also | received considerable assistance in sug- gestion from studying the proceedings of the general education board in America I "One other development of recent years l is cooperative credit which was legally established in this country in 1904 The movement has progressed by leaps and bounds One of the chief difficulties in the way of agriculture in India consists in the small size of the holdings in many parts of the country and the consequent lack of capital Moreover custom in con- nection with marriage and other cere- | monial occasions. demands heavy toll on all classes of the community. This has been largely responsible for l the poverty of the agriculturists. When a farmer had to marry his son or his | daughter or to perform any of the innum- erable ceremonials connected with his do- mestic life, he invariably had recourse 1 to the village money lender, who demand ed high rate of interest. When farm
 CT desired to improve his holding by the construction of well or the pur- l chase of bullocks, he was compelled to | resort to the same quarter and paid a
 rate of interest which amazes those not
 familiar with Indian conditions. "The Indian statute book of the past
 half century contains many examples of
 the attempts to relieve the agricuturist,
 but none of these prior to the passage of
 the cooperative credit societies act had
 the result so much desired
 "In 1909 there were 200S societies in India, and in the year 1911-15 the total
 registered societies numbered 17327. Hith- erto the main purpose of these societies, | which are of unlimited liability, has been the advance of money to individual 1 cultivators for specific purposes, but the
 movement is rapidly developing, and prog 1 xess, along lines analogous to those
 adopted by the agricultural Organization
 society in Ireland, is already marked. 1 There is room to hope that in the CO., operative system may prove to have been discovered the remedy. so long sought,
 for the tendency to thriftlessness which has caused agriculture to be so heavily | ha dioo in, ho aSf