on the way to solution; ploughs, cultivators, water-lifts, harvesters, winnowers and various other implements have been worked out to suit the peculiar conditions of the industry, and are passing into the peasants' hands at a rate which gives the promise of a gradual but veritable revolution. But it is not sufficient to place a strange implement in an Indian peasant's hands; bearings, bolts and nuts, cogwheels and the like are unfamiliar mysteries, and even an implement which has been reduced to the simplest possible form is apt to be spoiled by unskilful use or by equally unskilful attempts at repair. Thus the department which recommends a new implement must be prepared to train purchasers to use it, and must maintain an organisation for the supply of spare parts and for effecting repairs, until the local blacksmiths have learned by experience how to do what is required; these precautions are now usually taken, and they will materially accelerate the advent of the iron age.

The remaining requisites-manures - present two groups of highly complex problems. One of these is the supply and utilisation of special fertilisers, required chiefly in order to get the best return from land under intensive cultivation. The natural supplies of such fertilisers are small and scattered, and consequently experience is wanting as to their utilisation; in this matter the departments must to a large extent wait on the progress of industry, which will probably make available increasing supplies of by-products such as sulphate of ammonia, may offer sulphuric acid at such a price as to make the manufacture of bone-superphosphate a commercial success, and may utilise some of the available water-power for the preparation of nitrogenous fertilisers. Meanwhile little can be done beyond collecting data as to the price at which such materials will pay the peasant, popularising such fertilisers as are available in any particular locality, and arranging for their supply on wholesale terms and with a reasonable degree of purity. The second group of problems relates to the conservation of the ordinary manurial resources of the country; their importance is sufficiently shown by the statements that litter is rarely used, so that the bulk of the liquid manure is lost, while the greater part Vol. 226.-No. 449.

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of the dung is burnt for fuel. Little progress has so far been made towards the practical solution of this group of problems; they cannot be solved off-hand while the peasants are unable to provide litter, and while no alternative form of fuel is available; and, so far as can be seen at present, any large change must come gradually, and as the result less of specific activities than of the general economic development of the country. Pending such developments, the peasant and the agricultural reformer alike must remain handicapped by the loss of much valuable material.

It remains to speak of processes. Here, as in other branches of activity, the experience of the last ten years affords ground for reasonable confidence. The organisation of even the smallest holding is a complex function of time, weather, labour, cattle and numerous other variables; and a change in processes, desirable in itself, may often prove to be impracticable in the conditions which prevail. But enough has been learned by experience to show that the practice of the country is not immutable, and that new methods will be adopted gradually when they are in fact suited to the conditions. At the same time the complexity of the problem has been realised much more completely than in the early days of efforts towards improvement; and the fuller recognition of the conditions of success marks in itself a substantial advance towards achievement.

Much that is interesting and important in the work of the agricultural departments necessarily fails to find a place in the foregoing survey, which attempts to concentrate attention on the main lines of operations and on the conclusions which can be drawn regarding the prospects of ultimate success. The official narrative to which reference has been made claims that during the last ten years, while the annual expenditure on the departments has risen from about 60,000l. to nearly 350,000l., the increase in the value of agricultural products due to its exertions already exceeds 2,300,000l. a year; and, without committing ourselves to the arithmetical accuracy of the last figure, we may still concur in the conclusion that the money spent has already proved a good investment. If the matter is to be regarded from

the book-keeper's standpoint, we must add that the balance-sheet is by no means complete, for a very large part of the expenditure has gone not to produce immediate returns but to accumulate a store of knowledge for future use and to build up the equivalent of a business connexion. Beyond question, these are the most important results of the decade; and the actual increase in agricultural income, substantial though it be, is in comparison little more than a by-product. Of the store of knowledge accumulated we need say little; such portion of it as has been published already makes a substantial contribution to the literature of agricultural science, while probably the larger portion has passed without formal publication into the common stock of the departments. But a few words are necessary regarding the element which we have spoken of as business connexion. Ten or fifteen years ago the problem of agricultural improvement was held by some observers to be insoluble, because it was impossible to establish the necessary relations between the peasants and the departments. The early agricultural reformers had made little progress in this direction, while the great landholders, on whose action high hopes had been based, had as a body given no assistance. The peasant was inclined to think that he knew his business better than anyone else; and the number of unorganised individuals was so great that the establishment of any general influence over them may well have seemed a desperate venture. The departments have succeeded in this venture; the attitude of the peasants has substantially changed; and, though they may not yet recognise their master, they admit that the agricultural officer is at least worth talking to and may be able to give them valuable assistance. This change of attitude, coupled with the progress made in organisation, mainly through the co-operative propaganda, but also by means of agricultural societies and committees, is the outstanding achievement of the past decade, and at the same time the chief ground for the reasoned confidence with which agricultural reformers can now face the future.

It must, however, be frankly recognised that there is no finality in agricultural reform. It is not merely that crops, implements and methods must change with the

times, but that each forward step brings into prominence difficulties hitherto unrecognised or at most vaguely felt, and that the growth of new needs keeps pace with the satisfaction of old. A glance at a few of the principal problems of to-day and to-morrow will fitly close this brief account of a vast and complex subject.

In the first place there are problems connected with education. On the technical side it cannot be claimed that success has yet been achieved; and agricultural instruction in the various grades is still the subject of experiment. At the other end of the scale there is the question of rural education. For years past the Educational Department has been pressing forward the multiplication of primary schools in rural tracts; and meanwhile the feeling in agricultural circles has steadily gathered strength that existing courses, whatever their value may be, will not give the country the peasants which it needs, men content to be peasants but equipped or, still better, determined to be more efficient peasants than their fathers. An official conference held last spring is reported to have recommended that the courses in rural schools should be made the subject of experiment; and it may be hoped that experiment will eventually lead to a solution of this important problem.

Another problem allied to education in its wider and less formal aspects is the development of a system of estate-management which shall promote the improvement of agriculture. In the early controversies on Indian land-tenure the confident hope was expressed by the party in favour of great estates that landholders of substance and position would do for India what had been done in England by the 'spirited proprietors' of the 18th century. As we have said above, this hope has not been realised. Some of the great landholders have done noble work in the provision of improvements of the more tangible kinds, but, speaking broadly, the art of estate-management is popularly regarded as the extraction rather of the maximum share of the peasants' income than of the maximum income from the soil. Its influence on the progress of improvement thus tends to be negative; and the essence of the problem is to reverse this tendency and to induce the landholder to apply his resources of staff, knowledge, and capital for the benefit

of his peasants, not as an effort of philanthropy but strictly as a business proposition.

Again, there is no longer any doubt that India needs an enclosure-policy. Enclosures exist, but the bulk of the land would have been described by one of the classical English writers as 'champion country,' parcelled out as it is into fields of irregular shape and often of minute dimensions, separated only by a strip of varying width which may serve as pathway or as a watercourse, and open on all sides to the depredations of animals wild or tame. And in this patchwork of fields the holdings of individuals are often incompact; a peasant may have fields scattered in every quarter of the village, and there is, as a rule, no machinery available for the processes of adjustment and consolidation. It is unnecessary to enter on a recital of the evils which result from this arrangement, for they are familiar to every student of agricultural history; but it is desirable to point out that the economic loss increases with every rise in the cost of labour and power, and that the need for adjustment becomes greater as the scope for improvement becomes wider. Already the experts employed by the State find that the progress of reform is hampered in many directions, in controlling the spread of weeds or insects, in regulating the flow of surface-water, or in promoting the most economical use of cattle and implements. And the need will continue to grow; if the consideration of the question be delayed, there is grave risk that it may have to be decided in a hurry, and in that case the unnecessary evils which have followed on enclosure elsewhere are only too likely to be reproduced in Indian conditions.

There is also the problem of ensuring that no part of the value of a peasant's improvement shall be claimed from him either by the State in the form of increased revenue or by the landholder in the form of increased rent. Improvements are already protected to a certain extent by laws and regulations which vary in different parts of the country. The provisions in force are on the whole not ill-adapted to the state of agriculture with which they aim at dealing; they contemplate for the most part tangible improvements, such as wells or drains; and, while their suitability to the new conditions is at