There is sufficient experience available in India to show that it is here that the agricultural departments will encounter a real difficulty. Silage is essentially a fodder for milking, or for idle, stock. Like succulent fodders in general, it is less well adapted for bullocks while at hard work. The cultivator is quite prepared to make an effort to feed his working cattle; but, as we have seen, he expects his cows-especially when they are yielding no surplus milk for household use-and also his young stock to look after themselves. The preparation of silage, therefore, makes little appeal to him; it is this indifference that those trying to introduce the new process must combat. We are of opinion that propaganda on the lines of that carried on in the "village uplift" campaign in the Gurgaon district in the Punjab, a description of which will be found in Chapter XIV, is called for with the object of inducing cultivators to adopt the making of silage, and that, in conducting this campaign, an appeal should be made to the "cow-protection" instincts which are so strong among the Hindu population, with the object of securing voluntary local assistance. But, in conducting a campaign of this character, it is very necessary to observe caution and to ensure that district officers and voluntary assistants who may be prepared to help, should, before they engage in propaganda, have some practical experience in silage making. The process is so simple consisting as it does merely in the making of a pit of a given size, the cutting of green succulent fodders, the filling and tight trampling of the material and the weighting with earth or stones-that persons anxious to popularise the making of silage may easily suppose that reading and following instructions are sufficient to ensure success. as is the case with very many simple agricultural processes, attention is required to small points of detail in dealing with which printed instructions are an inadequate guide, such as the necessity in sunny weather of pitting as soon as possible after cutting, and, until a silage maker has had at least one season's successful experience, he should demonstrate to the cultivator; for a very slight error which resulted in spoiled fodder would mean the end, for the time being, of all propaganda work in the locality. But not Small rations of silage fed to the hungry cows and young stock of the country during the season of fodder scarcity would, we think, do more than anything else to bring about a rapid change in the quality of Indian cattle. There is no real difficulty in providing the pit silo required for storage in most parts, but there would be difficulty in securing suitable green material for filling the pit in many parts of the country. This difficulty would seldom be insuperable, however, if cultivators realised how greatly this stored fodder would add to the value of their cattle. A campaign for the extension of the use of silage should, moreover, appeal to many among the educated of all communities, and not to Hindus alone; for no lover of animals can fail to deplore the sufferings. which millions of cows and young cattle have to face every season in their struggle for existence on the burnt up grazing grounds of India. 186. While POSSIBILITY OF IMPROVING THE QUALITY AND UTILISATION OF FODDERS. more attention to the management of grazing grounds, to the making of hay, to the collection of dry grass, and to the ensiling of the many kinds of suitable material that is, or might be, grown in this country would all contribute to the solution of the stockowner's difficulties, they do not exhaust the directions in which the fodder supply might be improved. Practice in regard to the storage of dry fodders, especially the straw of cereals, varies widely. Where cultivators are careful of their cattle, as in the cotton tracts, storage is systematically practised, and the surplus of a good year is often carried forward to ease the troubles of a bad. In other districts, no thought is given to the future. Something, too, might be done to effect economy in the use of millet stalks (kadbi), which are the cultivator's stand-by in so many districts. This fodder, especially juar kadbi, is often coarse, and, when it is fed whole to cattle, much of it that would be of the utmost value later in the year is likely to be wasted in the early part of the season. The use of the chaffcutter has spread rapidly in some parts of the country, and, wherever kadbi is the main fodder, attempts should be made to get its use extended. It is likely that some coarse fodders might be put to better use if they were harvested at a more suitable time. It is well known that the value of the straw of cereal crops is increased if they are harvested at the earliest time that the state of the grain renders possible. When the grain becomes dead ripe,' the quality of the straw is always inferior. The correct period at which to harvest, in order to get the maximum value from grain and straw, varies with different cereals. We are not satisfied that this subject has received enough attention from the agricultural departments, and we would suggest that, in districts in which cattle waste a considerable part of the coarse fodders to which they have access, the possibility of securing a better and more palatable straw by earlier harvesting should be considered, and that experiments should be made to determine the earliest stage at which the crop can be safely cut. Where the straw of wheat, barley or rice, when supplied liberally, is rejected by stock, measures for increasing its palatability should be investigated. Methods which suggest themselves are moistening the straw in water in which a trace of gur has been dissolved, or sprinkling it with salt, or with any cheap meal or condiment likely to tempt the appetites of cattle. CROPS. 187. Even when all possible use has been made of existing sources GREEN FODDER of supply, a shortage of fodder is likely to arise in many parts of the country. In these circumstances, the only remedy is the cultivation of fodder crops on the cultivator's holding. For this there would appear not only to be much need, but much room, since the total area under fodder crops is somewhat less than nine million acres, or 3.5 per cent of the total area sown, as compared with 16.6 per cent in Egypt. Moreover, India provides a wide choice of crops suitable for this purpose, from the indigenous fodder juar and senji to the introduced maize, lucerne, berseem and Guinea grass. New and promising fodders like fodder bajra (Pennisetum purpureum) and Japanese MO Y 286-14 millet (Panicum cruxgalli) are frequently discovered as the world is being explored. In no direction is the introduction of exotic crops likely to prove more valuable in adding to the resources of India than in the case of those intended for cutting green as fodder. We observe with satisfaction that in the North-West Frontier Province, in the Central Provinces and also at Pusa, the agricultural departments have succeeded in ripening the seed of berseem freely; for, if the seed of this crop can be cheaply grown in quantity, there is at least some ground for the hope that, in tracts such as the Punjab and Sind, it may add greatly to the fertility and wealth of the country. Its value as a fodder in Indian conditions is shown by Pusa experience where, in the cold weather of 1925-26, 103 acres sown with berseem, and irrigated, supplied pasturage for 350 cattle from November to May and in addition provided 410 tons of green fodder for cutting. The high value of this crop both directly in stock feeding, and indirectly in increasing the yield of other crops, is shown by the experience of Egypt, where it is very extensively used both as fodder and green manure. The cultivation there is of the simplest kind; it is sown between the cotton rows before the final picking of that crop, or on the bare land immediately after the cotton stalks have been pulled; it grows luxuriantly, keeps down weeds, and leaves the land in good condition for succeeding crops. The difficulty which we foresee is not the discovery of suitable crops for growing as green fodder, or for making into silage; it is in persuading the cultivator to grow them. His first line of reasoning is that, if he pays land revenue and water rates and grows a crop, it must be a money crop or a food for himself, not a fodder crop or one that may be ploughed in as green manure. He cannot be expected to know, nor, if he were told, could he envisage, the effect which the introduction of red clover into the rotations of western countries had on both the livestock and corn-growing industries; or the effect of berseem in Egypt on the rich crops of maize and cotton which follow. But these indirect effects of leguminous fodder crops on the fertility of land, and the lasting value of their introduction in association with large irrigation schemes must be recognised, and should receive the fostering care of governments concerned with the development and permanent welfare of their countries' resources. The Indian agricultural departments are well aware of the value of fodder crops but an extension of the area under them has been hard to secure. In Madras, the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province and Sind, efforts have been made to encourage the cultivation of such crops by the remission of the charge for water from government sources of irrigation or by the grant of concession rates for the use of such water. As in the similar case of crops grown for green manure, the results have so far proved disappointing. We recommend, however, as we have done for green manure crops, that the concession should be continued and extended to other areas provided that this is accompanied by an active campaign of propaganda and that all areas in which it is granted are kept under regular examination. Where the concession is at present granted, it applies to all fodder crops. Where it is being extended to new areas, we think that the concession might advantageously be limited to the growing of specific fodder crops of proved value, such as berseem. The further recommendation we have made in regard to green manure crops would apply both to existing and to new concessions. If, after a period of five to ten years, it should appear that the concession has failed to achieve its main purpose, it should be rescinded. IMPROVEMENT OF CATTLE BY CAREFUL BREEDING. The cultivator's second reason for limiting the area sown with fodder crops is the great trouble involved in protecting them from raiding animals. The risk his crop would run if he were the sole grower of fodder in a village is, indeed, so great that an enterprising cultivator, otherwise anxious to grow a new fodder crop, would almost certainly refuse to make the attempt. In introducing fodder crops to a new district, it becomes necessary, therefore, to persuade several cultivators to make the attempt simultaneously, so that they may share both the risk and the work of protecting the growing crop. We have here another reason for advocating the fencing of land, a subject we have discussed in Chapter IV. 188. We turn next to examine the efforts which are being made to improve Indian cattle by careful breeding. This is a task which in one sense is straightforward and easy as compared with the difficulties encountered in attempts to improve the management of cattle by feeding them properly; but after the initial stage has been accomplished and superior animals have been raised, the difficulties are the same. The supply of fodder must in general determine whether the cattle improved by the efforts of the breeder can, or cannot, be maintained in India; since larger or more productive animals would depend for their welfare on proper feeding to an even greater extent than those now in existence. The best Indian cattle already have remarkable powers of endurance and of recuperation after long periods of hardship. The most skilful breeder could scarcely improve on the best of them in this direction. The improvements which are possible are in the direction of form, size and average constitution in both sexes, and in that of productiveness, both of offspring and of milk, in the case of the cow. And, with the exception in certain cases of the grading up of the average animal, these qualities are conditioned by food supply. The exception to the general statement just made is important and must be explained. As compared with the cattle of other countries, the best Indian cattle excel as "foragers," that is, in their capacity to maintain themselves in good condition on the scanty grazings to which they have access. Their quality in this respect, however, varies widely. It follows that the efforts of a breeder who made foraging qualities his goal might result in improvements of a kind that would make no additional demands on food supply or on the ordinary stockowner's powers of cattle management. This exception is one which the breeder should never lose sight of; it offers the one possibility of improvement which is not dependent either on an increase in food supply or a decrease in the number of cattle to be fed. In general, however, the rule that increase in production must be preceded by an increase in the food supply holds good. In cattle of MO Y 286-14a both sexes, the larger the animal the greater must be the ration, and, in the female, regular breeding is impossible without proper feeding; while, though, for a time, a good cow would produce milk at the expense of her own tissues, the yield could not be maintained unless the food supplied was in proportion to the milk produced. 66 The task of the agricultural departments in improving cattle has been easy in the sense that, as has already been pointed out, the country contains a number of fine breeds which, in spite of all fodder difficulties, have, in most provinces, provided foundation stocks of comparative excellence with which to begin the work of improvement. The first task of livestock experts has been to recognise and classify breeds of merit, and this has now been done generally; the next has been to establish farms for the breeding of bulls of those breeds which display outstanding merit, with a view to the isolation of the best types, where the breed has become mixed or indefinite in its characteristics. This work is now in progress and will take time; for, as the result of neglect in past management, a number of the breeds are much less uniform than is desirable. Lack of what a stock breeder describes as type" is indeed very noticeable in existing herds; and it was the possession of this quality by young stock at Hissar that marked out the Punjab herd among those seen by us in our tour. What has already been accomplished at the long established Hissar farm will, in time, be accomplished at the other cattle breeding farms, and there can be no doubt that they will be able to supply bulls for distribution which will show a great improvement over the foundation stocks with which the farms started. We were able to visit a small number only of these cattle breeding farms, and the impression we formed was that they are now well managed but that, at an earlier stage, some of those in charge of breeding herds were too much given to making experiments in crossing and did not possess the patience that the building up of a good herd by selection calls for. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that the variety which may be in place on an educational farm for the purpose of demonstrating differing qualities in cattle is out of place on a farm the object of which is the breeding of bulls. This is now recognised by agricultural departments and "type" is receiving the attention required. It is endangered by one circumstance only, the quest almost everywhere for dual purpose cattle, that is, for breeds of which the bullock would be suitable for draught, and the cow for milking and ghi production. The desire for such breeds is laudable, for good dual purpose cattle would, no doubt, meet a strong demand; but the would-be improver of cattle is confronted by most complex problems, and, in such circumstances, there is much to be said, and that not only in Indian conditions, for the policy of one thing at a time. 189. Whilst, in all provinces, cattle breeding is now receiving NUMBER OF BULLS DISTRIBUTED CATTLE FROM attention and cattle farms have been provided, it will be seen from the following statement of the number of breeding bulls supplied in the three years ending with 1925-26 that, except in the Punjab, little progress has as yet been made and that even in that FARMS. |