country. The extent to which the area under ground nut is increasing may be gathered from the fact that the 28 lakhs of acres now occupied by this crop is more than five times the average area in the quinquennium ending 1904-05. In the Bombay Presidency, a departmental selection which brings in from Rs. 80 to Rs. 100 per acre has taken the place of other crops worth about Rs. 40 only: while in Bihar and Orissa a variety has been introduced which gives a yield worth Rs. 100 per acre on light soil on which the cultivators formerly grew Kurthi, the value of which never exceeded Rs. 16 per acre.

The Agricultural Department has of late years given much attention to the question both of growing and storing fodders. Several promising fodders have been introduced and methods of storing them in the dry state or as ensilage have been adopted. It has been definitely proved that palatable ensilage can be made from coarse grasses, weeds and other herbage which in most parts of India are available in considerable quantities towards the end of the rains. Crops such as maize and juar, cut and siloed in kutcha pits when in flower, also make excellent silage as experience has shown on almost every Government farm. The silage is especially valuable for use in the hot weather when pasture lands are parched and bare and when it is impossible to keep cattle in condition without leavening their diet with some green food, however small.

The introduction into India of the famous Egyptian clover and soil renovator, which is now being successfully grown in Sind, Bihar, the Central Provinces and the North-West Frontier Province, is one of the great achievements of the department. Berseem is grown at Pusa from November till May, and is followed in the same year by a crop of early maize. By cropping a comparatively small irrigated area of poor land with these two crops, a large herd is provided for the greater part of the year with all the bulky green food it requires.

In addition to economic work on crop improvement, a number of investigations relating to land improvement are carried out by the Agricultural Department. During the year under review, some important results have been obtained regarding the movements of nitrates in the soils, the conservation of soil moisture, the storage of farmyard manure, the utilization of the sources of

natural indigenous phosphate, etc. At Pusa, an electrical process has been worked out for the preparation of dicalcic phosphate from apatite, which is found in large quantities in parts of Bihar: This method eliminates the use of sulphuric acid, the high price of which has hitherto stood in the way of utilizing Indian deposits of apatite in the manufacture of superphosphate. It has been proved at Pusa that by means of composting with sulphur; the natural indigenous phosphate in the form of bones can be effectively utilized in place of imported super-phosphate.

In Indian agriculture, cattle play a larger part than they do in most countries, and naturally, cattle-breeding and dairying have received increasing attention within recent years. The Imperial and Provincial Departments of Agriculture, as well as some of the more advanced Indian States, have drawn up schemes of improvement based on the assumption that there are too many scrub, half-starved cattle in this country, and that an improvement in the quality of Indian livestock is necessary. Improvement can be effected, it is believed, by selective breeding, cross-breeding, and better feeding. The different breeds are, therefore, being studied, and pure bred herds established with the view of providing a foundation whereon the cattle industry, both as regards draught and milk, can, in course of time, be raised. At Pusa, the milk yield of the pure Sahiwal herd has been almost doubled in 10 years by selective breeding and better feeding, while the immediate result of cross-breeding with sires of European pedigree has been to produce animals giving on an average double the milk yields of the best Sahiwals. Having produced a cross of good milking capacity by adding Ayrshire blood, it is proposed to adapt the strain to the needs of the country by mating the cross-bred dams with Sahiwal bulls of good milch pedigree. It is hoped that in course of time a well-defined Sahiwal-Ayrshire strain will be evolved, which, though inferior to the first cross in milking capacity, will be hardier and more adaptable. Breeding work on these lines is being continued on three other farms of the Imperial Department, as well as on the cattle and dairy farms in the provinces.

Until, however, the apathy of Indian land-owners towards rural economics generally is overcome, the high standard of cattlebreeding and cattle-feeding being demonstrated on Government

farms will be of little avail. This apathy can, it is believed, be broken down by giving the sons of land-owners a more scientific and practical education. It is hoped that, in course of time, education similar to that now provided at the Imperial Institute of Animal Husbandry and Dairying will go far to foster a practical interest in cattle-breeding and dairying. With a view to supplementing the facilities available for dairy education, the Government of India have this year taken over temporarily the military creamery at Anand in Gujerat and propose to run it as a dairy factory school for the training of factory managers and

⚫ others.

The problem of how to organize a pure milk supply for urban centres is also engaging the attention of the Department. ExIperience in the Central Provinces and Bengal has shown that the organization of the trade on co-operative lines offers great possi'bilities, but that it is necessary to organize the production as well as the sale of milk.

The cattle population of India is subject to an ever present menace from the most destructive contagious diseases in the world. The brunt of the struggle against this menace is borne by the Indian Veterinary Service. With the recrudescence of rinderpest in an intense form after a comparative respite of three years, the services of the provincial veterinary staff were requisitioned to a larger extent than in the previous year. While in 1923-24, the cases treated at the veterinary hospitals and dispensaries and by itinerant officers numbered 2,373,909, during 1924-25 2,740,121 animals were offered for treatment. The number of inoculations carried out with sera and vaccines for granting immunity against contagious diseases in infected areas similarly rose from 812,141 to 968,431. If it is remembered, that in 1919-20, when the mortality from contagious diseases was 25 per cent. higher, the numbers offered for treatment and inoculation were respectively 2,032,439 and 709,795, the extent of the increasing confidence on the part of the Indian peasant in the work of the 'Civil Veterinary Department will be readily realized.

A most progressive step has been taken this year in the Madras Presidency in connection with the application of prophylactic measures against rinderpest, which, even at low virulence, levies as heavy a toll as all other contagious diseases put together.

Under the powers conferred by the Madras Cattle Diseases Act, compulsory inoculation by the serum alone method, which has been accepted on account of its simplicity and absolute safety as the most suitable for India, has been legalized in villages notified by a District Magistrate. This is a step in the right direction, for outbreaks of rinderpest are not likely to be less frequent or less virulent until all animals exposed to infection in an outbreak are compulsorily inoculated with a preventive serum.

The greater part of routine serum manufacturing work hitherto done at the Imperial Institute of Veterinary Research at Muktesar has been unloaded on to the tributary plains sub-station at Izatnagar. This has proved an effective step as it has enabled Muktesar to supply a larger quantity of sera and vaccines and to be utilized to a larger extent than before for research. The demand in 192526 for the sera, vaccines, etc., made at the Institute was a record one, nearly 6 million doses having been supplied. Systematic courses of training in laboratory methods ranging in duration from two to six months have been instituted at the Institute for members of the Indian Veterinary Service and the Royal Veterinary Corps, and selected subordinate officers of the Provincial Civil Veterinary Departments. In the year under report, 16 officers availed themselves of the facilities thus afforded.

In addition to the saving of cattle life from the ravages of disease, the Veterinary Department performs the important function of emasculating inferior bulls to prevent deterioration of the breeds of cattle. During 1924-25, 195,427 scrub bulls were castrated by this department, of which as many as 109,432 were done in the Punjab. The introduction of the Burdizzo castrator, by which an animal can be rendered sterile without cutting the skin or shedding blood, has rendered the operation unobjectionable to the religious susceptibilities of the people, and an appreciable increase in the number of animals offered for emasculation may be expected in the near future. All efforts at cattle improvement are in danger of being nullified until it is made impossible for these scrub bulls to reproduce their kind.

CHAPTER VIII.

Finance, Commerce, Industries and Communications.

(In Appendix I will be found a brief sketch of the Indian financial system. A crore is ten millions and a lakh is one hundred thousand.)

In Chapter IV the Financial History of 1925-26 was sketched in very broad outline, and here that sketch will be filled in by a brief description of the principal conditions which affected the year's finances.

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The prosperity of India, and, consequently the state of the Indian Budget, depends very largely on weather conditions. Indeed, many people to whom India is hardly more than a name are yet familiar with the famous description of the Indian Budget as a gamble in rain ". Since this epigram was made, the Indian Government have marked many of the cards with which they play, by extending irrigation and communications, especially Railways, and the gamble has thus already assumed something of the form of a game of skill and foresight. Nevertheless, continuing our analogy, the monsoon still takes a leading part in the game and the Indian, and now, also, the Provincial Governments, must play according to the cards which it deals.

During 1925-26 weather conditions were not altogether favourable. The previous winter's rainfall was not unsatisfactory, but the wheat crop suffered from excessive cold and high winds. Almost everywhere in India, the monsoon came to an early end. But Indian trade and commerce during the year were influenced less by internal conditions than by general conditions of world trade. In the previous year, the prices of cotton, both raw and manufactured were entirely out of tune with the general price level. By the end of the financial year 1925-26, however, raw cotton appeared to have returned very nearly to its pre-war relation to other prices, thus holding out the prospect of an increased trade in cotton piece-goods as soon as prices became steadier. During the year, the import of cotton piece-goods fell considerably-the decrease during the first nine months of the financial year amounting to 22 per cent. in value and 15 per cent. in quantity. The

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