(3) It would be advantageous if forecasts of yield in the Central Provinces and in Burma (with the exception of the rice forecast in the latter province) were prepared by the Agricultural Department as in other provinces, provided that the statistical assistance recommended in paragraph 538 is given (paragraph 525).

(4) The practice of issuing forecasts in leaflet form should be revived. The forecasts should be translated into the vernaculars (paragraph 525).

(5) Fuller information regarding wells should be given in the irrigation reports (paragraph 525).

(6) In the forest reports, statistics for the proposed new Minor Forests Division should be shown separately; the areas actually under timber should be given and public and private ownership distinguished (paragraph 525).

(7) Discrepancies between the figures given in departmental returns and those given in the Agricultural Statistics of India should be reconciled (paragraph 525).

(8) In the reports on education, figures relating to urban and rural areas should, if possible, be shown separately and a uniform classification of school should be adopted (paragraph 525).

(9) The classification of uncultivated lands into culturable waste and not available for cultivation requires examination (paragraph 526).

(10) In the permanently settled areas of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and Assam, an attempt should be made to extend to other crops the method now in use in collecting the statistics of jute production (paragraph 527).

(11) The correctness of the formulæ used in arriving at the areas under mixed crops should be tested from time to time by actual field trials of the main types of mixtures found in a district (paragraph 527).

(12) The formation at the headquarters of each provincial agricultural department of a statistical branch which is recommended in paragraph 538 should precede any attempt to transfer all crop-cutting experiments from the revenue to the agricultural departments or to improve the technique of the experiments (paragraph 528).

(13) Changes in the figures of standard yield of crops should be made only on data supplied by crop-cutting experiments (paragraph 528).

(14) Before a system of random selection of villages and fields for crop-cutting experiments is introduced, the means to carry out far more numerous experiments must be provided (paragraph 528).

(15) No attempt should be made to teach the primary reporting authority to form an exact mental picture of a "normal" crop (paragraph 529).

(16) It should be left to the tea trade to move for legislation with a view to improve the statistics of tea production. If a request to this effect is made, it should, if possible, be granted (paragraph 530).

(17) The statistics of coffee are susceptible of improvement (paragraph 530).

(18) The jute trade should collaborate with Government in the improvement of the jute crop statistics (paragraph 531).

(19) As an ultimate solution of the difficulties in compiling satisfactory statistics of the jute crop, the possible collaboration of all jute interests, from the cultivator to the trader, manufacturer and exporter, should be kept in view (paragraph 531).

(20) The statistics relating to the production and consumption of the cotton crop should, in future, furnish a model for statistics relating to other crops (paragraph 532).

(21) The statistics of inland trade (rail and river-borne) should be revived forthwith for all commodities of economic importance and not only for cotton. Advantage should be taken of the gap in their publication to reconsider their form and contents (paragraph 533).

(22) Statistics should be collected of the trade on the main roads crossing the frontiers of India (paragraph 533).

(23) While the statistics of livestock for the different provinces are now sufficiently uniform to permit of useful comparisons, considerable improvements are possible without resort to the costly expedient of engaging special staff (paragraph 534).

(24) The quinquennial census of livestock should be taken simultaneously throughout India (paragraph 534).

(25) An effort should be made to secure uniformity of classification in the next cattle census and the heads under which returns should be made should, therefore, be settled by the next Cattle Conference (paragraph 534).

(26) All vital and health statistics should be shown separately for rural and urban areas (paragraph 535).

(27) Vital statistics for rural areas should include particulars of the strength and distribution of the medical and health services, including trained midwives (paragraph 535).

(28) There is a wide field of useful work for private individuals and associations in correlating vital statistics and health data with those relating to agricultural and irrigation conditions (paragraph 535).

(29) Similarly, there is a wide scope for private individuals and associations working on a common plan under the aegis of university organisations or of bodies of a semi-official type such as the Punjab Board of Economic Enquiry, to prosecute research into such socioeconomic problems as indebtedness, mortgage debt and fragmentation of holdings (paragraph 536).

(30) The object of statistics collected by government agency should be, primarily, the supply of the information required by Government

to discharge its functions and, secondarily, the supply of information required by the producers and the general public. In present circumstances in India, the latter object is of special importance (paragraph 537).

(31) Each agricultural department should be strengthened by the appointment of statistical assistant. The appointment of this officer should precede any changes in present arrangements for statistical work (paragraph 538).

(32) The application of mathematics to agriculture has introduced an entirely new factor into scientific agriculture and a specialist with the highest qualifications in this branch of agricultural science should, therefore, be attached to the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute (paragraph 538).

(33) It is desirable that a statistical officer should be appointed at the headquarters of each provincial government who would control all government statistical work other than that connected with agricultural statistics and, as director of a bureau of statistical information, would be an adviser to non-official workers (paragraph 538).

(34) The present statistical organisation of the Government of India should be strengthened by the appointment of a statistician of first rate ability as head of a separate Department of Statistics (paragraph 539).

(35) The appointment of this officer should precede any changes in the present arrangements for statistical work, but it is hoped that, as a result of his appointment, a Bureau of Statistical Information would be created with the administration of which leading economists, scientists and business men would be closely associated (paragraph 539).

(36) Every opportunity should be taken to utilise the statistical experience of the International Institute of Agriculture at Rome, but the expense of a whole-time representative in India on the Permanent Committee of the Institute would not be justified by statistical considerations (paragraph 540).

(37) As a primary agency for the collection of agricultural statistics in temporarily settled areas, there is no practicable alternative to the subordinate officials of the revenue departments (paragraph 541).

(38) More use should be made of non-official agencies in the collection of agricultural statistics but, in the present stage of development, no extensive use can be made of a system of paid reporters (paragraph 541).

MO Y 286-40

SCOPE OF THE CHAPTER.

CHAPTER XIX

THE AGRICULTURAL SERVICES

543. We propose to consider in this chapter the recruitment, organisation, pay and conditions of service of the personnel of the agricultural departments with special reference to the increased responsibilities which will be imposed upon them if the recommendations we have made in this Report are accepted. In the course of this review, we shall have occasion to deal from the service point of view with some matters which have already received mention in Chapters II, III and XV. Questions affecting the recruitment, organisation, pay and conditions of service of the veterinary personnel have already received full treatment in Chapter IX and we do not propose in this chapter to recapitulate the conclusions there arrived at.

544. The Indian Agricultural Service was constituted in 1906 as an THE INDIAN AGRIOUL- all-India service; an officer recruited to it was TURAL SERVICE. liable to serve in any part of India, was appointed and could only be dismissed by the Secretary of State in Council, by whom his pay, pension and other conditions of service were regulated. Although, in recruiting candidates for the service, the qualifications required for administrative posts were distinguished from those required for research and teaching posts, all officers once recruited were borne on the same cadre and received the same basic rates of pay. Recruitment for the Indian Agricultural Service ceased in 1924 in consequence of the general decision taken, on the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India, not to recruit further for such of the all-India services as were administering subjects, of which agriculture was one, which had been transferred, under the Constitutional Reforms of 1919, to the control of the Governors of provinces acting with their Ministers.

The Indian Agricultural Service will thus gradually disappear but, before it does so, it has still an important part to play in directing the agricultural development which will, we trust, result from the recommendations in this Report. For this reason, and also to enable the recommendations we have to make in regard to the future organisation of the agricultural departments to be more readily understood, it will be convenient to give some account of its antecedents and present distribution.

The service has been filled mainly by direct recruitment. recruitment ceased in 1924, only 22 out of 109 effective posts were held by officers who had been promoted from the lower ranks of the department. There was no competitive examination for admission to the Indian Agricultural Service. Appointments to it were made by the Secretary of State in Council, on the advice, in the case of direct recruitment, of an ad hoc selection committee sitting in London and, in that of promotion from the lower ranks, of the Government of India.

Preference both for administrative and for research and teaching posts was given to distinguished graduates of universities in the British Empire." In making appointments to administrative posts, weight was attached to the possession of a university degree in honours in science, or the diploma of a recognised school of agriculture, or other similar distinction, and also to practical experience in farming. Candidates for research and teaching posts were required to possess a university degree or other similar qualification in the special science concerned and preference was ordinarily given to those who had spent a period of two years in research work under a scientist of established reputation and had studied science from an agricultural point of view. Candidates had, as a rule, to be between the ages of 23 and 30.

In the eighteen years which elapsed between the foundation of the service and the cessation of recruitment for it, many officers combining high academic qualifications with considerable practical experience were recruited and, from the point of view of efficiency, the arrangements we have described above, on the whole, worked well.

When recruitment for the service ceased in 1924, its sanctioned strength was 157. The posts were distributed as shown below:

The service was, however, considerably under strength and the number of effective posts was, as already mentioned, 109. This has since fallen to 93. The officers holding these posts are distributed as shown below: