olerably efficient seed-drill, a somewhat
inefficient cultivator, but it is quite incapable of breaking up
land properly."

The other tools in use on the Indian farm are fit companions for the
primitive plow. Some one has said that 75 cents would buy the complete
cultivating outfit of the Hindu ryot! I saw men cutting up
bullock-feed with a sort of hatchet; the threshing methods are
centuries old; the little sugarcane mills {219} I found in operation
here and there could have been put into bushel baskets. The big ox
carts, which together with camel carts meet all the requirements of
travel and transportation, are also heavy and clumsy, having wheels as
big as we should use on eight-horse log-wagons at home. These wheels
are without metal tires of any kind, and the average cost of one of
the carts, a village carpenter told me, is $25.

As to the other crops grown by the Indian ryot, or farmer, I cannot
perhaps give a better idea than by quoting the latest statistics as to
the number of acres planted to each as I obtained them from the
government authorities in Calcutta.

Rice 73,000,000
Wheat 21,000,000
Barley 8,000,000
Millets 41,000,000
Maize 7,000.000
Other grains 47,000,000
Fodder crops 5,000,000
Oilseeds: linseed,
mustard, sesamum, etc. 14,000,000
Sugarcane 2,250,000
Cotton 13,000,000
Jute 3,000,000
Opium (for China) 416,000
Tobacco 1,000,000
Orchard and garden 5,000,000

It is somewhat surprising to learn that of the 246,000,000 acres under
cultivation to supply 300,000,000 people (the United States last year
cultivated 250,000,000 acres to supply 90,000,000) only 28,000,000
acres were cropped more than once during the year. With the warm
climate of India it would seem that two or more crops might be easily
grown, but the annual dry season makes this less feasible than it
would appear to the traveller. Even in January much artificial
crop-watering must be done, and no one can travel in India long
without growing used to the sight of the irrigation wells. Around them
the earth is piled high, and oxen hitched to the well ropes draw up
the water in collapsible leather bags or buckets. A general system of
elevated ditches then distributes the water where it is