INDIA IN 1887.* This title is so comprehensive, that it
might mislead, were it not followed by the frank limitation that the India referred to is bounded by the vision of the professional agriculturist. It is desirable also to state that Mr. Wallace landed in Bombay
• on May 10th, and embarked from the gate of Western India on September 13th, 1887, during which period he " travelled by rail over thirteen thousand miles," including a flying visit to Ceylon. It cannot be said that he did not make the most of his time ; for he reached Simla and Lahore through the Aravulli route by Ajmere, ran down to Calcutta and up to Darjeeling, flitted back to the Western coast, and thence descended on Southern India, whence, after a trip to Kandy, he returned to Bombay. Four months' travel in the hot season implies great energy, and, to profit by it, close attention to the special objects for which the journey was undertaken ; and, so far as the contents of his volume warrant an opinion, he kept steadily to his purpose throughout his rapid tour. He wished, primarily, to ascertain what had become of certain British and native students whom he had taught at Ciren- cester, next to press on the Indian Government the necessity of establishing an Agricultural Department, and also to extend his own knowledge. We are bound to say that, although he was so short a time in the country, the result of his toil is not an example of book-making, but a genuine con- tribution to the description of matters of great importance ; and the reason is that he carried to India a large fund of knowledge derived from experience and study, and a sincere desire to promote the welfare of that vast dominion. His pages contain many photographs of cattle, the value of which is diminished by their imperfections, due to the fact that the author only began to learn the photographic art five days before he embarked !
If he failed in photography, he made a remarkable discovery in regard to cattle, alighting on a fact which, apparently, though not unobserved by the natives, is new to the physiologists. He found that all the Indian cattle, a small percentage excepted, however white the hair, have jet-black skins. The native farmers attribute weakness to those having white skins, and the inference he draws is that the black skins may help the cattle to bear the sun. Nor is it confined to them; for the same peculiarity exists in sheep, pigs, and horses. Mr. Huxley, in a letter to the author, says that the fact he mentions " is of very great interest, as showing a hitherto unsuspected relation between colour and climate." Professor Helmholz cannot furnish any explanation of the phenomenon. Mr. Wallace, however, has a theory of his own. He thinks that while black • India in 1887, as Seen by Robert Wallace, Professor of Agriculture and Rural Economy in the University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd. London : Biraptin, Marshall and Co.
absorbs heat in a greater degree:thanllighter colours, the black body is relieved by the moisture escaping in the form of vapour, which carries off " the surplus heat which the black skin absorbs over and above what it gives off by radia- tion." The question is one requiring a closer examination ; but, apart from its scientific interest, it is held to have some bearing on the attempts to improve Indian by an admixture of English cattle, which find no favour in the eyes of Mr. Wallace. Indeed, the kernel of his doctrine is that Indian agriculture can only be improved by applying English knowledge and thoroughness to Indian methods. " It is not difficult to see," he writes, " and no practical man will wonder at it, that climate and general surroundings being so vastly different in India from those at home, British and American practices must be unsuited to Indian conditions." Therefore he is of opinion that " the first step to be taken is the study of native agricultural practices," not to subvert, but to make them more effective ; and that is why he wants an Agricultural Department, which should deal with the whole subject. The thing has been tried and has failed, so far; yet he would persevere, believing that a choice of competent men who went to work on the lines he has indicated would bring success. His scheme, however, is very large, and might be expensive ; yet it is based on the correct principle that Indian methods, as a rule, form still the best basis of any system or systems which should give the Indian farmers and breeders the benefit of Western science so far as it may be applicable or adaptable to the conditions of the East. At the same time, the demands on the Government are endless, the expert is not infallible, and the problem is so difficult that even more money may be wasted. One thing is encouraging. It is that the natives will readily adopt real improvements. A sugar-cane crusher is widely used, the native tailor has taken kindly to the sewing-machine, and a Hungarian has success- fully secured a considerable European market for cigars and tobacco, not by substituting European for native practices, but by " improving native methods of growing, curing, and manufacture by the light of his superior and more extensive knowledge." So it is with machinery; it must be such as will suit the soil and climate, or it will be useless. The fact is that the various peoples of India do know something considerable about rearing and tending cattle and other creatures, and about cultivating and manuring land, because they have been so engaged for some thousands of years; and the help we can supply, if at all, is by infusing into agriculture the spirit which pervades the British administration, thorough- ness, and bringing to bear the advantages derived from science, guided by that wise caution which a scientific education is supposed to impart. It is even possible that a long and minute personal acquaintance with India might modify some of the strong opinions held by Mr. Wallace and other experts, and make them more keenly alive to the difficulties which beset • the Indian Government.
Not the least interesting chapter is that dealing with the wheat trade. There has been some apprehension that the Indian ryot would supplant the British farmer. Mr. Wallace, examining the question on the spot, does not deny that Indian wheat will remain as a substantial item in our imports ; but he gives many solid reasons to show that the supply will not be boundless. Drought, diseases peculiar to the grain, frost, fogs, locusts, rats, and weevils plague the grower. " We must not forget," he says, " the likelihood of the yield decreasing and the quality degenerating by too frequent growth on the same land." The natives have already observed that wheat causes the soil to deteriorate, if not manured ; and, therefore, they cling to their system of rotation. In Russia and America the same law holds. In the latter country, " the line bounding the best wheat area has steadily moved westward, and left, as a record of its course, the ruins of disused and deserted mills." In Southern Russia failure followed on an attempt to extract continuous crops of wheat from the same area. Then in India, as elsewhere, a deficient harvest reduces exports, and obviously a rise in freights has a similar effect even in years of plenty. Still, the power of sending forth wheat, the result of improved oceanic communication, is a boon to the Indian farmer. He may find another in the adoption of ensilage. On that point Mr. Wallace writes in a confident strain;-- "If silage," he says, " is ever to be effectually established on a large scale for the benefit of a great community, it will be in India.. Although I am no advocate of the general adoption, under all circumstances, of systems of ensilage in this country, yet I believe
the adverse climatic conditions met with in our Eastern Empire are such as could be overcome in a marked degree by making silage on an extensive scale. Modern invention and recent experience have produced methods by which ensilage can now be practised at a merely nominal expenditure of capital. It is not necessary to build an expensive house or silo. It is even unnecessary to dig a hole in the ground to contain it. All that is required is to build the grass into a good large stack on the surface of the earth, and tie it down tightly with galvanised steel-wire rope. Some who pretend to have a special gift in the matter of reading the native character, say that a native will never come to bury good food for cattle in a hole in the ground. Surely they can have no objection to build it in a heap, where they can always have an eye upon it."
He admits that bad results have followed from the use of silage in some instances, and that the soldiers are against it as horse provender; but he still contends that sufficient success has been attained to warrant the belief that this mode of e3onomising grass-crops will be adopted in the end, and not only mitigate famines, but avert, or help to avert, "the im- pending evil of an over-crowded population." The book, indeed, is full of suggestions ; and, on the whole, Mr. Wallace's report looks decidedly favourable to the future agricultural prospects of India,—all the more because the produce, animate and inanimate, is as vast and varied as the enormous dominion itself.
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