Ajmer-Merwara is a small enclave of British territory in Rajputana, of which the Agent to the Governor General in (b) AJMER-MERWARA. Rajputana is Chief Commissioner. Its area is 2,711 square miles and the population at the census of 1921 was just under half a million. The principal crops grown are maize, juar, cotton, barley, bajra and wheat. The area under cotton during the past thirty years has increased from 10,000 acres to over 45,000 acres. Sheep-breeding is of some importance and a considerable amount of wool is exported from Merwara. The rainfall is uncertain in quantity and very unequal in distribution. The annual average for the last twenty years has been 19.45 inches. Of the total cultivated area of 350,000 acres, 110,300 are protected by tanks and wells, but both these sources are dependent upon rainfall and, in periods of drought, both dry up. ISLANDS. The Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, about 360 miles from (c) THE ANDAMAN Rangoon and 760 miles from Calcutta, are 2,508 square miles in extent. Some 2,250 square miles are still under virgin forest and the only tract which has been opened up is that which forms the penal settlement of Port Blair in the South Andaman Island. This settlement was established in 1858. In 1921, it was decided that it should be closed and the policy of the Government of India now is to convert the Andamans into a free settlement as soon as practicable. Of the total population of the Islands, which was returned at the census of 1921 as 17,814, the Port Blair settlement accounted for 15,675, and the two forest centres, one in the Middle and the other in the North Andaman Island, for 1,581. The small and rapidly dwindling aboriginal population numbered only 786, some of whom were included in the population of the forest centres. As throughout the rest of the islands, the configuration of the Port Blair settlement is very hilly. Rice is grown where the narrow valleys open out sufficiently to permit of its cultivation. Sugarcane and maize are cultivated to some extent in the uplands and vegetables are raised both in the valleys and uplands. Plantains, pineapples and papayas do well. The government plantations of tea, coffee, rubber and coconuts have been handed over to private enterprise. The average rainfall is about 140 inches. There is a well defined dry period extending from mid-December to the end of April. Coorg, bounded on the north and east by the Mysore State and on the south and west by the Malabar and South Kanara (d) COORG. districts of Madras is, in the main, a province of hills and forests, subject to very heavy rainfall which varies from 45 inches in the north-east to nearly 250 inches in the south-west. Its area is 1,582 square miles and its population at the census of 1921 was about 164,000 of whom 121,000 were classed as cultivators. The main crops are rice and coffee which are grown on 82,000 and 40,000 acres respectively out of the total cultivated area of 136,000 acres. Spices, mostly cardamoms and pepper, are also grown and rubber and a little tea. The Resident in Mysore is the Chief Commissioner of Coorg. The small province of Delhi consists of an area of 593 square miles, taken, in 1912, partly from the Delhi district of the Punjab and partly from the Meerut district of the The province was formed for administrative reasons arising out of the establishment of the Imperial Capital. (e) DELHI. United Provinces. This brief account will serve to show the obstacles which stand in the way of providing the minor provinces with suitable agricultural assistance. With the exception of Baluchistan, they are all small in area. They are very far apart and their agricultural problems are entirely different in character. The attention paid to agricultural development in all of them is very small indeed. Coorg has a Deputy Director of Land Records and Agriculture who, however, has received no special training in agriculture or its allied subjects. There are two experimental farms in the province, one for oranges and one for rice and sugarcane, but, as no experimental work is in progress on the latter, the agricultural assistant who was in charge of it is now employed temporarily in the Revenue Department. In the Andaman Islands, there is an agricultural officer stationed at Port Blair, and, in Baluchistan, a subordinate agricultural officer in charge of the experimental fruit station at Quetta. The only farm in Ajmer-Merwara has been established by the District Board. Delhi has no agricultural or veterinary staff of its own and is dependent on the Punjab for agricultural and veterinary assistance. The Pusa staff gives the minor provinces what help it can. From 1911 to 1919, Mr. and Mrs. Howard were in charge of the experimental fruit station at Quetta for six months of the year and members of the Pusa staff have visited the Andaman Islands to investigate crop pests and diseases. But occasional visits by specialists are of little use in the absence of a resident agricultural officer familiar with the local problems and able to carry the suggestions of the expert into effect. ASSISTANCE. 572. We are of opinion that all these provinces, with the exception of Delhi, should have a definite agricultural organisa(ii) THE CASE FOR tion. We are aware that the administration of none of them, with the exception of that of Coorg, pays its own way and that the cost of any steps taken to promote their agricultural development must, therefore, fall on central revenues from which assistance will also probably be necessary if any substantial progress is to be made in Coorg. But we are unable to regard this fact as a conclusive reason for inaction. Baluchistan is a frontier province which, on general grounds, cannot be expected to be self-supporting. Special attention to agricultural problems in the Andaman Islands is required now that the declared policy of the Government of India is to convert it into a free settlement. Ajmer-Merwara, in consideration of its long history of famines should, in our view, receive special consideration and might well be made a model, both in agricultural and veterinary matters, to the States of Rajputana by which it is surrounded. Delhi should not be deprived of the agricultural advice and assistance which would have been available if it had remained part of the Punjab. MO Y 286-42a We examined two witnesses from Baluchistan and Ajmer-Merwara and have perused memoranda in which the agricultural position in the Andaman Islands and Coorg has been clearly explained. The witnesses as well as the writers of the memoranda, in their desire to advance the solution of the local problems with which they are familiar, advocated the establishment of a research and administrative organisation similar to that which exists in the major provinces. Such a demand is entirely natural and has our sympathy, but it is obvious that, without sacrificing all sense of proportion in administration, it would not be possible to give the minor provinces a research and executive staff of agricultural officers with laboratories, equipment and experimental and demonstration farms on the scale considered appropriate for a major province. (iii) POSSIBLE METHODS OF PROMOTING THE AGRICULTURAL DEVE LOPMENT OF MINOR PROVINCES. THE 573. There appear to us to be three possible ways in which the agricultural development of the minor provinces could be assisted. The first is by the formation of a small separate agricultural service which would have its headquarters at some centre such as Pusa or Delhi where experimental work and the training of subordinate staff could be carried on. The objectious to this course are that the soil and climate, and consequently the agricultural needs of the minor provinces, vary so widely that it would be impossible to select any one centre which would be suitable for all of them and that an officer whose experience had, for example, been gained in Coorg would be of little use in Baluchistan. There is also the further objection that the service would be too small to be efficient. The second method is to place the agricultural development of each minor province in the charge of the Director of Agriculture of the nearest major province and to give that officer such additional staff as may be necessary for the purpose. This course is, primâ facie, attractive and, in the case of Coorg, Ajmer-Merwara and Delhi, is probably feasible. Indeed, it appears to us the only way in which suitable provision can be made for the agricultural needs of Delhi. We, therefore, consider that that province must continue to look to the Punjab Agricultural and Veterinary departments to supply its requirements in respect of agricultural and veterinary assistance. Distance and difficulties of communication would render the effective linking up of Baluchistan with the Bombay Agricultural Department difficult and the same objection applies to linking the Andamans with the Burma Agricultural Department. The position of Coorg and Ajmer-Merwara remains for consideration. On the whole, the advantages of placing Coorg under the Madras Agricultural Department and Ajmer-Merwara under the Agricultural Department of the Punjab or the United Provinces are open to question. The responsibilities of the directors of agriculture of those provinces are heavy and are certain to increase. Even if they were given additional staff, the tendency would inevitably be to subordinate the interests of the minor to those of the major province. The third course, which is the one we recommend, is that each minor province, with the exception of Delhi, should build up an agricultural organisation of its own. For research, apart from such work as the aptitude of the officer in charge of the new provincial organisation may lead him to undertake, the minor provinces must rely on Pusa and on the research staff of the neighbouring major provinces whose problems in many directions are very much akin to their own. We consider it most desirable that Pusa should pay special attention to the needs of the minor provinces. The research organisation of the neighbouring major provinces should be able to do much to help them and we trust that assistance will be generously given. It would only be when visits from a provincial research officer were required that financial considerations would arise and suitable arrangements in regard to the cost involved would be necessary. The planting community of Coorg can look for assistance to the scientific staff of the United Planters' Association of Southern India which receives a subsidy from the Coorg Administration. It is the needs of the ordinary cultivator in that province that have to be considered. As regards district work, we consider that the staff of a deputy director's circle in a major province would form a suitable unit for Baluchistan, Ajmer-Merwara, Coorg and the Andamans. The deputy director himself should be obtained on loan, preferably from the neighbouring major province, and should be given a special allowance in view of his increased responsibility. Subordinate staff should be recruited on his advice and might, in part at least, also be obtained on loan from the neighbouring province. As these minor administrations would usually be unable to afford the pay of senior officers, the gazetted staff required should continue to be borne on the cadre of the province from which it is lent, so that officers could be reverted and replaced whenever their time-scale pay exceeded what the administration could afford. The Director of Agriculture and the Director of Veterinary Services of the neighbouring major province should be appointed advisers to the head of the minor province concerned and should be directed to visit the minor province once a year, or once in two years if this proved sufficient. The lines of development are, we think, best left to be settled in the light of the local conditions but we would suggest that, as the funds available are bound to be limited, the first task should be to take up the major problems, and that all-round development should not be attempted until some progress has been made with their solution. In Baluchistan, the first problem to be attacked would be that of fruit culture and it would, therefore, be advisable that the first deputy director should have special experience of this branch of agriculture and that, before appointment, he should be given an opportunity of studying questions connected with the transport and marketing of fruit. We are informed that, in Ajmer-Merwara, there are three good markets for dairy produce but that the industry is poorly organised and that no attempt has been made to improve the dairy herds. In these conditions, a deputy director with special experience of livestock or dairying, or preferably of both, would seem to be required. In the Andamans, experience of "planting " crops would seem the first consideration. For Coorg, an officer with all round agricultural experience would seem most suitable. We would impress upon the administration of Baluchistan that irrigation development in that province should, as far as possible, proceed simultaneously with agricultural development. In paragraph 294, Chapter X, we have made recommendations regarding the investigation of the possibilities of developing irrigation in Baluchistan. REMARKS. 574. It is our hope that the new agricultural organisations we recom(iv) CONCLUDING mend should work in the closest collaboration with the local co-operative and educational authorities and that the recommendations we make in regard to co-operative, educational and also veterinary matters in the preceding chapters will also be held to apply, so far as practicable, to the minor provinces. In Coorg and in the Andaman Islands, it will also be desirable that cordial relations should be maintained with the Forest Department in the province. Although we contemplate that the agricultural organisations of the minor provinces should be responsible to the heads of the local administrations, we would recommend that the Council of Agricultural Research should take a special interest in the agricultural development of these tracts. The small area of each of these tracts should make them especially suitable for trying out experiments, and, in this and in other ways, they might well become models from which the major provinces could copy. We trust that no effort will be spared by the Government of India to remove the reproach that, because of their insignificance, the claims of these small units to share in the benefits of the general advance which is being made, not only in agricultural science but in all matters affecting rural welfare, have not received a due measure of attention. In order that agricultural progress in the minor provinces may be on sound lines, it is, in our opinion, essential that increased attention should be paid to the development of education and co-operation. POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN AGRICUL TURE IN BRITISH 575. In the course of our investigations, we have had occasion to notice many points at which the agricultural and veterinary problems of British India require the co-operation of the Indian States for their solution. We have mentioned two instances-that of the adoption on a large scale, of the serum-simultaneous method of inoculating cattle in Mysore and that of the compulsory cultivation of cotton of an approved variety in the Rajpipla State-in which Indian States have adopted a more advanced policy than has so far been followed in British India. STATES. Although, by our terms of reference, our enquiry has been limited to British India, the Indian States are so interspersed with British territory, their area is so large, amounting as it does to 711,000 square miles out of a total area for all India of 1,805,000 square miles, and their economy |