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GROUP II.— AGRICULTURE, IIORTICULTURE, AND EORESTRY.
SECTION I.—AGRICULTURE.
The soil and climate of India are of so diversified a nature, that the plants of alniost
every botanical region can be grown within its wide limits ; and although the mass of
the land is productive, it is largely dependent on a good System of irrigation to preserve
and develop its fertile qualities. The different varieties of soils have received native
names, which indicate either the means of irrigation or the nature of the soil itself;
thus, land may be watered by means of wells, ponds, or canals, or it may be dependent
on räin or inundation of rivers.
From the very varied nature of the climate, which at different seasons of the year
partakes of the nature both of tropical and temperate parts of the world, and from the
naturally corresponding diversity of Vegetation, one is less surprised at the fact that the
whole of India enjoys two harvests during the year, the one called the Kharif or rain
crop, sown in June, before the commencement of the rainy season, and reaped at its
close in October ; the other, sown in October and reaped in March or April, called the
Rabi crop. The latter, embracing the months which approximate in temperature to that
of the seasons of cultivation in colder countries, corresponds with them also in the nature
of the plants eultivated, as, for instance, wheat, barley, oats, peas, beans, vetch, lentils
and gram, tobacco, flax, and plants yielding oil-seeds. In the rainy season a total ly
different set of plants engages the agriculturist’s attention, as rice, maize, millet, sugar-
cane, cotton, indigo, and inost of the tropical legumes.
The Hindoos are acquainted with many, and have the merit of originating some of
the improved processes of agriculture, as the rotation of crops, and the drill husbandry;
but they have no knowledge of the rationale of rotations, or how to improve on the
System they follow
The agricultural implements are of the rüdest and most primitive description, differing
neither in form nor material from those that have been in use from time immemorial.
The Native plough is offen nothing more than a crooked branch of a tree, with a piece
of hard wood for the coulter; sometimes simply a forked branch with one of the forks
taken off serves the native for ploughing purposes. With such implements as these,
tillage becomes a mere scratching of the ground, and the fact that the soil, notwith-
standing its being eultivated with such inefficient tools, bears such crops as it does, is
probably due to the great amount of labour expended on it, the ground being repeatedly
ploughed before sowing, especially for tlie Rabi, or spring crops. The average number
of ploughings is six: but land intended for wheat is ploughed from 10 to 12 times, and
for sugar-eane 11 to 27 times.
European influence and knowledge has efifected but little improvement in the con
dition of the agricultural implements of India. An explanation of this is probably
to be found in the fact that the ploughs and harrows of British pattem which have been
introduced from time to time, are found unadapted to the inferior size and strength of
the cattle generally used for farming purposes ; similarly they have been shown unsuited,
or at least extremely inconvenient, for the manipulation of Native labourers, who as a
rule, are delicately framed, and inferior in muscular power to the Anglo-Saxon peasantry.
The Natives are by no means averse to the adoption of improvements in their implements
or modes of husbandry, and taken as a whole would probably be found not more bigoted
in their attachment to the practices of their forefathers than English agriculturalists.
As instances of Native receptivity of foreign influence it may be mentioned that the
potato, which some half a Century ago was but little known, is now found in every
European Station, and that curry, the now universally received Native standing dish,
is of foreign origin, having been introduced by the Portuguese, to whom India is also
indebted for some choice varieties of fruits.
