open, the roof on that side being supported, not by a solid wall, but by wooden posts placed at certain distances. From the street or lane of the village, nothing can be known of what is going on within the precincts of the little court-yard and house, and nothing can be seen but a high mud wall, and strong door, admitting the ingress and egress of the people and cattle.

Should the stranger look within the door, the whole family will be thrown into the greatest commotion; the females will conceal themselves in the farthest chambers; the head of the family approaches, remains silent, yet seems determined that the stranger shall not advance to defile his cookingplace, round which are several bright brass pots. Nothing is to be seen which, in the English sense of the word, may be called furniture. If the stranger enter the hut of the common cultivator, he will find the alarm of the natives much less; the door is so low that he can scarcely enter, and when he has reached the interior, it is full of smoke-such a thing as a chimney has not yet been thought of. Near the cooking spot are piles of common earthen pots, containing salt, onions, and red pepper, and old bags or dirty cloths with spices. In one corner stands the large basket, containing the family grain, and on the floor are the two stones for grinding the daily allowance of meal, near which naked children are crawling up and down. It is impossible to stand upright without danger to the head, against the cross sticks, which support the flat roof. Opening from this room, is another-the family sleepingapartment. Here all is pitch dark, and the beds are lying on the ground. The stranger will now be glad to reach the pure air outside, where he may observe the rude Hindo implements of husbandry, not in use, lying at the door, and see the cultivator's lean, worn-out bullocks, which have been toiling all day, eating their scanty allowance of provender for the night. It will be long ere a stranger can learn the real feelings of such people. Fear still rules over them. But through much kindness and long-continued intercourse, they will at length express their sentiments of the Government, and will say that 'We have, indeed, still peace and security under the British, but are fast becoming a nation of beggars.""

Let us add to this, that each of these miserable farm-steadings must pay its yearly land-tax to the government; and then the grandeur and luxury of the Indian capital will be looked upon in a different light, when we feel, that by far the greater portion of it must be consequently wrung from these poor and humble cultivators of the soil.

Having alluded to the Hindoo implements of husbandry, we may here mention how rude and simple these are. Their light plough is made of a sharp pointed block of hard babul wood, or Egyptian thorn, with a pole in front, at whose extremity is a

Vide a small but valuable essay, entitled, “Means for Ameliorating India, deduced from personal observations," &c. By Archibald Graham, Surgeon, H. E. I. C., Bombay Establishment. Glasgow, 1835. Pp. 24–7.

cross-beam to be laid across the necks of the oxen.

The construction of this rude, simple, and most inefficient machine, than which nothing could be meaner as to mechanical design, is completed by a single erect handle fastened to the other extremity of the block. By means of this it is guided through the soil, which it would be libellous to say that it ploughs, as it merely stirs the surface to the depth of three or four inches. During the progress of the crops, they are carefully watched by men and boys, who throw stones and crack whips to scare off the flocks of birds; and when fully ripe they are plucked up by the roots. The highest piece of ground is selected for the thrashing floor, and the grain is here deposited in a large semicircular heap. The women then commence twisting off the heads, which they throw on the ground, and when a sufficient quantity has been thus treated, the bullocks, with their noses muzzled, are fastened in a row to a post in the centre; and, being driven round and round, are thus made to tread out the grain with their hoofs. The method of winnowing is quite in keeping with these preceding operations. It is performed by a person who, standing on a high bank, lets the grain fall gently through his hands-experience having settled the question of the grain being likely to seek the ground from its weight, while the chaff from its lightness disappears upon the wind. Millers being unknown among the Hindoos as a separate occupation, each family grinds its own meal, by rubbing the grain between two stones.

If

Besides this light plough there is, however, another one used for the black soils, which is necessary for productive purposes to turn up to a depth of at least fifteen inches. the implement used be imperfect, it must be acknowledged that the labour bestowed on the operation is great, as this ploughing is repeated four or five times in different directions during the same season before the hot weather sets in. Several harrowings are, besides, necessary to break the clods, and lastly, a transverse beam is passed over all, in order that the surface may be properly smoothed for the reception of the seed. "To effect this deep ploughing," says Mr Marshall, in his excellent Statistical Account of the Pergunnah of Padshapoor

"A heavy and consequently a clumsy plough, and a team of four or some. times five pairs of the strongest cattle (generally buffaloes) that can be mus

tered are used. Nothing can be much ruder or display less mechanical skill than this plough, the mode of harnessing the cattle to it, and of keeping the machine in motion. The plough itself consists of a heavy, three cornered block for a share which has a constant tendency to drive deeper into the earth, and to make the hinder part of the instrument to which the handle is affixed tilt up. › The piece which forms the breast of the plough leading from the broad part of the share to the bar or rather beam, to which the hinder pair of cattle is harnessed, is placed at such an acute angle as to be constantly choked with the earth moved by the share. The bar is at least twelve feet long, and its extremities are level on the necks of the rear, or strongest pair of the team, who, by this length of lever, have great power given them to move the plough in every direction but the right one. They are parallel to, and at some distance wide of the plough, exerting their strength not in drawing, but in pushing, and the least inequality either of the exertion or of the resistance twists the plough out of its course, and all the efforts of the harassed ploughman are insufficient to maintain any thing like a straight line. The remaining pairs of the team draw, and are yoked on each side of a long rope, harnessed into small cords of the most fragile fabric. On the yoke of the third pair from the extremity sits a lad, with his face towards the plough; he is armed with a strong leathern whip, with which it is his business to animate the pair, on whose neck his immediate seat is, as well as the pair beyond, to effect which he is of course perpetually obliged to change his front, and it must be allowed he displays much dexterity in the revolution. The charge of the foremost pair is committed to an old man, who generally takes his place quietly in the front of them, and walks backwards, dragging on a bullock in each hand by a small halter: he of course cannot contribute much to preserving a right direction."

Mr Marshall then informs us, that he has repeatedly conversed with the cultivators on the inordinate depth of their ploughing, and on the glaring imperfections of the instrument which they employed to effect it, but his answer was, with regard to the first point, that without this very laborious operation there would be a total failure of their crops-a decisive objection if correct. In reference to the second, he found that the introduction of a better constructed plough would be very diffi.. cult, from the great scarcity of capital, as well as from the want of skill, alike in the artizan to fashion, and the ploughman to use it.

Their drill machine is worthy of remark, not only as indicating more contrivance, but as being somewhat better adapted for accomplishing the end in view.

* Statistical Reports of the Pergunnahs of Padshapoor, Belgam, Hoondgoone, &c. &c. in the Southern Mahratta country, by the late Thomas Marshall, Surgeon, B. E. folio. Bombay. 1822.

VOL. VIII.NO. XXXVII.

C

"It appears rude," says Mr Graham, "but is well suited from its great simplicity for sowing their grains in rows. It consists of three or four small hollow bamboos, which are about four feet, high, and fixed into a large wooden bowl or cup. Near the ground each passes through a bar of wood, at the distance of about a foot one from the other. After passing through this, they run obliquely forward, and are shod with iron at the point, behind which the grain drops into the ground. The machine is drawn forward by a pair of bullocks, which pull from a beam running forward from the bar. The man goes behind driving the bullocks, and feeding the cup from a bag tied round his waist. A large iron scraper fixed in a bar or beam of wood, is often used instead of ploughing by the Hindoos. It penetrates the ground to the depth of three inches, and destroys all the weeds, to remove which, a harrow, with three or four wooden teeth follows. They clean the ground by means of a crescent-shaped beam. When the blade is low, this allows the row or line of the grain to escape in the middle, while a small iron scraper on each end of the beam clears the interval betwixt the rows of all weeds, loosening the soil, and throwing it gently up against the roots of the growing wheat. Their plan of sowing other products along with their grains might be worthy of consi. deration.”*—Graham, p. 77, 78.

When this is the object in view, a supplementary pipe, and another assistant is necessary. One of the apertures in the cup is closed, and from the lower part of its corresponding bamboo passes a cord five or six feet in length, to the opposite extremity of which is tied the additional bamboo, which projects far behind, and is kept erect by a lad, who holds it by a string fastened to his left hand, while with his right he keeps feeding it with the separate grain. The lower end of the bamboo passes through a small block of wood, which is just long enough to permit its edges to rest on the sides of the furrow, which has already been made by the vacant bamboo of the drill machine.

The harrows of the Hindoos are of two kinds-one like the small plough adapted to the red sandy soil, the other like the great plough to the black. The first consists of one bar of wood five or six feet in length, through which are driven about six stout iron tines or spikes, projecting about eight inches. From the centre of this bar proceeds a bole, strengthened by a cleat on each side, and fastened to the yoke of the bullocks, of which two pairs are generally employed. The driver of the rear pair sits on the cleats, and his weight adds to the power of the instrument, which is, however, still inefficient from its lightness for breaking up the large clods of the black soil in which it is used, and is mainly useful in raking up the myriad roots of weeds dislodged by the plough. Mr Marshall thinks that this harrow

would be much improved in power were it extended backwards in a succession of bars like the English harrow, of which it may be said to be just the front bar. The other implement, which is named Okar, is adapted only for the very lightest soil; and has merely a few blunt wooden teeth, and no iron tines. In fact it cannot be considered much more efficient or powerful than our common garden rake.

An instrument named Kolpee, and a most useful appendage to the drill husbandry, is used for the first and second weedings of the plants, and this is done before they have attained any great height. In principle it entirely resembles the English horse-hoe, and consists only of two shares or spuds, one at each extremity of a crescent-shaped frame, the arch of which passes over the row of corn, whilst the shares move the earth between the rows, uproot the weeds, and raise the soil to the roots of the plants. In performing this operation the bullocks are always muzzled. After the plants have grown too high to allow of the use of the kolpee, two other weedings are generally required, especially with regard to the more valuable crops. These are done by the hand; women being generally employed for the purpose, armed with a small spud, which they learn to use with great dexterity and adroitness.

We have only to mention another agricultural implement, which is called Kurub, and in its formation is nearly the reverse of the hoe. It consists of a stout and somewhat crescent-shaped knife, the cutting edge turned forward, and the ends fixed in stout wooden cheeks. It passes very near the ground, and is used for cutting up stubble and the stronger weeds. It is used shortly after the gathering in of the harvest.

In many parts of India wheel carriages are not at all in use for agricultural purposes. The manure is carried out to the fields in baskets, on the heads of labourers, and the grain is brought home in bags slung over the backs of cattle. The straw, which is fastened up into bundles, is trailed home behind the bullocks or buffaloes. It is not that wheel-carriages are not equally applicable to those parts of the country where they are not used, as to those where they are, but habit in a Hindoo becomes a kind of second nature, which even the demonstration of the most unequivocal benefits has been found insufficient to overcome.