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extensions of cultivation are not feasible within a reasonable period of time.

The subject of forest industries is so important that a slight digression from the main subject may perhaps be pardoned. It is encouraging to learn that the Forest Research Institute has already erected a plant for paper and pulp, and the commercial possibilities of the bamboo and some varieties of grass are being seriously explored. Professor Stebbing thinks it is a great pity that the bamboos are not being exploited for making umbrellas, for which there is a great demand all over the country. The minor forest produce can also be usefully employed to encourage the manufacture of furniture of every description-tables, chairs, baskets, etc. It may be mentioned that the Government have recently built a small distillery at Dehra Dun to introduce the resin of pinus longifolia on the market as colophony and turpentine. Another larger distillery is being set up in the Kangra forest of the Punjab.

Coming back to agriculture proper, it seems obvious that, in view of the comprehensive activities of the fifteen-year old departments of agriculture, the moment is quite opportune for the appointment of permanent Land Development Commissions in every province to direct and guide the efforts of a federation of local committees watching over the progress of groups of villages. A great deal of agrarian propaganda and practical persuasion and demonstration are needed to establish definite points of contact between agricultural science and old-fashioned agricultural practice. In order to achieve this end successfully, the cooperation of the more enterprising and substantial landowners is essential. Besides, the officials of the inadequately staffed departments have their hands already too full with research and experiment to be able to devote time to the practical improvement of agriculture, outside the Government demonstration farms, dairy farms and stock-breeding stations.

The desirability of considerable extension of regular annual irrigation will have to be seriously considered. More and more irrigation is needed, not only in regions where irrigation works have proved to be exceedingly remunerative propositions, but also in areas where the undertakings may not be commercially profitable. As things are to-day, the neglect in the reclamation

of the soil and other difficulties make irrigation ineffective even in tracts where it is available. Mr. Keatinge observes :-*

The land is seldom levelled or laid off for irrigation in the manner essential to effective production and the economical use of water. The fields are greatly sub-divided in sizes and shapes which make proper irrigation almost impossible. As each section of the canal is opened every ten days for the issue of water, there is a scramble for the water on the part of a large number of cultivators. It is lavishly used and freely wasted, to the detriment of the current crops and often to the permanent damage of the soil. Some cultivators get their lands overflooded, while others get less water than they need.

He goes on to say that large areas are ruined by waterlogging and by the salt efflorescence which results from it, and that this could be prevented by effective drainage, if the financial position warranted an increase of capital expenditure. The appointment of a Royal Commission on Indian Agriculture constitutes a landmark in the annals of the Indian administration, which stands irrevocably committed to safeguard and promote the interests of the inarticulate cultivating millions, whose contributions to the State Exchequer make them the principal support and mainstay of the Government of India. These hardy, uncomplaining, poverty-stricken people do not understand the subtleties of political rhetoric; nor can they use party solidarity as a fulcrum for their appeals. They are unorganized, except in so far as the co-operative societies have brought them together, mainly, though not exclusively, for obtaining a cheap credit. They are uneducated. History presents no parallel to the appalling and extensive illiteracy of a class which forms the backbone of the country, whose ceaseless labours are carried on amidst surroundings dominated by the seasonal factor, whose sufferings in times of drought and famine are acute and heart-rending, and the profits of whose industry are so meagre that only a blissful ignorance of the economic aspect of things keeps them content with their position.

The Royal Commission will be the instrument of lasting benefits to the cause of rural development in India, if its personnel courageously disentangle themselves from petty controversies regarding the details of administration and recommend the early introduction of a scheme of technical education, closely related to

*"Agricultural Progress in Western India," p. 82.

the vital necessities of agriculture throughout the thousands of Indian villages. Indian agriculture, as at present conducted, may be compared to an invalid, with his whole head weak and the whole heart faint; the patient is also suffering from curvature of the spine and extreme forms of anæmia.

Apart from exterior factors, lack of mental discipline due to the complete absence of educational opportunities is a potent cause of backwardness and failure. What is here advocated is not a mere literary education, which has proved such a complete failure among the urban intelligentsia, producing a literary proletariat which, in certain provinces, threatens to become a danger to the stability of the State. What is here urged, with all the emphasis on its recognition as a fundamental need, is the establishment of a type of education, right in the heart of the villages, organically related to the peasant-farmer's environment and need, which may stimulate production and bring about a liaison between the discoveries of agricultural science and the complexities of agricultural practice.

It is necessary to take into account such opportunities for higher and lower agricultural education as have already been provided in developing the argument for their further extension. The Agricultural Research Institute of Pusa provides facilities for courses in post-graduate research; there are, in addition, colleges at Lyallpur, Coimbatore, Poona, Cawnpore, and Nagpur. Almost all these colleges are suffering from a serious shortage of accommodation, with the result that out of the hundreds of applicants only some 40 or 50 can be annually admitted. It is not quite clear what percentage, if any, of the successful students go back to agricultural pursuits.

The University of the Punjab has recently passed regulations for commencing an M.Sc. research course at the Lyallpur College. The college at Cawnpore appears to be satisfying a long-felt need and is devoted to useful work. The diploma course, which is of four years' duration, is intended to equip the young Zemindar to take an active part in the administration of his estates and, at the same time, to give him a sound general education. The twoyear vernacular course is designed to help the substantial ryot who cultivates his own lands. The bacteriological laboratory at Muktesar also deserves more than a passing mention, since the value of its research can be measured not only by the evolution

of so many serums for combating epizootic disease in cattle, but also by its potentialities for good, as some experiments have not yet been completed. More promising still is the establishment of Chairs of Rural Economics at some Universities, as for instance at the University of Calcutta.

It is idle to pretend that what has so far been achieved-and the achievements are really notable-is adequate to the needs of higher agricultural education in India. Not until agricultural education has established itself at all the Universities, pervading their intellectual atmosphere and capturing the academic imagination with the vastness and urgency of India's interests, so indissolubly bound up with the development of agriculture, can we expect anything like the blossoming out of real sympathy and leadership on the part of the intellectual classes. It may be that in India as in other parts of the world, leadership will come from those who have availed themselves of wider opportunities, but it is essential that at least a section of the educated people should take to the land as a means of livelihood and as pioneers of progressive ideas and practices. It would be excellent to have "Summer Conferences " organized by the Co-operative Societies, in co-operation with townspeople and university men, who would expound practical agriculture in simple language throughout the villages. All the attempts which have so far been made are mere ripples on the surface of a great need. Not until larger and more generous efforts are made to take the instruction right into the centre of the villages, can agricultural practice materially benefit. The urban schools have largely been attended by the sons of townspeople with a view to using degrees and diplomas as passports to Government service.

Education is certainly not recommended here as a panacea for all the social ills of rural India, but the basal assumption is that even the rudiments of technical instruction may act as a powerful solvent of those mental inhibitions, prejudices and traditional ideas which act to the detriment of agricultural progress. The type of instruction advocated is not one calculated to bring into being a cultured landed gentry in embryo, but rather one which would help forward the development of agriculture in the interests of the economic progress of the country-side.

D. N. BANNERJEA.

THERE

WILLIAM BATESON

One

HERE are many definitions of genius, and none of them are satisfactory. Yet it is a quality that most of us can recognise when we come across it, even though we may not understand it. It is a quality which no one who had met and spoken with him would have denied to William Bateson. felt at once that one was in the presence of an intensely virile personality. Physical features count for much, and Bateson's were such as to have marked him out in any assembly. Yet, arresting as these were, the impression they conveyed was not so much of physical as of intellectual and spiritual power. Had his activities lain in literature or politics his features would have been familiar to all. By the choice of science for his life's work he escaped that press publicity for which he had much contempt. So it has come about that, although the average educated man has heard his name, and in a vague way associates it with a remarkable growth in our knowledge of heredity, he has little idea of what this new knowledge means to mankind, and of the part that Bateson played in its acquisition.

After all this is not surprising when we call to mind how great is the mental inertia of a population, especially in habits of thought where pecuniary profit is not directly concerned. In spite of the magnificent advertisement from the churches it took some decades before the greater part of what we call the civilized world began to think in terms of evolution. It may be some decades yet before it begins to think in terms of heredity. Religion, law and politics adapt themselves but slowly to fresh thought, and perhaps, on the whole, it is well that this should be so. Nevertheless man in the mass does progress gradually towards a truer conception of his own nature. He is coming to rely more and more upon experimental knowledge in compassing that development of the mechanical and technical operations of production essential to an ever-growing population. He is learning to use knowledge with less prejudice, and to trust the scientific method of acquiring it. He has already harnessed heredity for the improvement of his crops, and though at present heredity is for most but a technical process, there will come a day when man will realize

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