66

weedy animals eating up food" were repeated with variations almost everywhere; and that these statements were true we had many opportunities of seeing for ourselves.

The reasons given by witnesses for this overstocking were many: the keeping of cattle by others than cultivators; the keeping of cattle to produce manure for fuel, or for enriching the tilled land, on which, in some districts, they are folded; the practice adopted by landowners of letting grazing land to contractors, whose interest it was to secure as many head of cattle as possible at a fixed fee; the action of landowners in permanently settled tracts in letting out all their land for tillage; similar action by Government in temporarily settled tracts; the abundance of free grazing land; the demarcation of forest areas; the high fees charged for forest grazing; the low fees charged for forest grazing; the absence of enclosures; the effect of indiscriminate grazing on the quality of the herbage; Hindu sentiment; the growth of industrialism; the lack of education; but we need not continue the list which the special knowledge or the lively imagination of our witnesses has supplied. Nor do we propose to discuss these opinions here; our purpose is to show how many are the causes that may contribute to the overstocking of grazing land in India and how widely views differ on the subject. We would only point out that, in existing conditions, it is impossible for the cow to breed regularly and to bring up the kind of calf which will develop into the strong active bullock for which the demand is so keen. Many misfits" must result from the deplorable conditions which now exist. The cultivator cannot get the quality of bullock he seeks; the effort to compensate by quantity for lack of quality continues; further turns are taken in the vicious circle as the years pass, and the condition of cattle tends to become worse.

177. To conclude a review of cattle management in India on this HIGH QUALITY OF pessimistic note would be to convey a wrong MANY INDIAN BREEDS. impression. We have throughout had in mind the cattle of the ordinary cultivator, whose business is not that of the stock breeder but that of the crop grower, whose interest centres mainly in his plough cattle, or in the buffaloes tended by his women-folk, and who has never had more than a very few animals in his charge. After what has been said, it may appear to be inconsistent to state that there are in India many fine cattle belonging to a number of well recognised breeds. Where are these cattle to be found and how have they been bred? To the first of these questions, the answer is that they can be found in widely separated parts of the country, from the hilly tracts where the North-West Frontier Province meets the Punjab-in which as one witness put it, bulls of the Dhanni breed "walk the pasture in kingly flashing coats"-to Madras, where the quality of the Kangayam cattle of the Pattagar of Palayakottai has won for his herd more than local fame. To the question "How have they been bred ?" it is more difficult to give an answer; but our evidence points to the conclusion that these fine breeds of cattle have, in recent years at least, owed little to the great landowners of the country. Some of them, it may be, are endeavouring

to improve their cattle, but we mention the Pattagar of Palayakottai because his was almost the only herd which was brought to our notice as an outstanding example of careful cattle breeding. If enquiry were to be made into the history of such breeds as the Ponwar of the United Provinces, the Hariana and Sahiwal of the Punjab, the Thar Parkar and Sindhi (Karachi) of Sind, the Malvi of Central India, the Kankrej of Gujarat, the Gir of Kathiawar, the Gaolao of the Central Provinces and the Ongole of Madras, we believe it would be found, in most cases, that their excellence was due to the care bestowed on them by the professional cattle breeders, usually nomadic, who were formerly common in India, but who are now abandoning grazing as the result of the spread of cultivation. Many references to these herdsmen and to the part they they took in supplying cattle to cultivators will be found in gazetteers describing former conditions in India. In some localities, their disappearance has been welcomed, for they frequently combined the professions of crop raiding with that of cattle rearing; but, in districts in which they adhered to their legitimate business, their loss is to be deplored. They were the only members of the rural population who paid attention to breeding and understood the management of cattle; they usually worked under unfavourable conditions, but their skill in selecting and tending cattle was so considerable that they were able to show good herds.

FACING THE
VATOR.

178. We now turn to examine the many suggestions for the improvement of cattle which have been placed before us. IMPROVEMENT OF CATTLE DIFFICULTIES Before we deal with these suggestions or describe the CULTI- action which is being taken by agricultural departments, it will be useful to examine the subject of livestock improvement from the cultivator's point of view. That the cattle of India are deteriorating for reasons partly, though not entirely, outside his control is the view of a number of experienced witnesses who gave evidence before us. This process must be arrested, if the cultivator's position is not to suffer. It can be assumed by those responsible for attempting to secure improvements that he will play his part, if he is made to understand that part clearly, for, although no breeder, he tends his plough cattle carefully enough, so long as food is provided by his holding, or can be procured without much personal effort. But he is by no means willing to make an unusual sacrifice on behalf of his cattle. It is in this last respect that he differs from the peasant of many western countries. In western lands, the stockowner is held responsible for finding food for his cattle. If, with all his exertions, he is unable to keep them in a fairly efficient condition, he sells them. His personal responsibility has been fixed on him by tradition and custom.

In India, the position is entirely different; the custom is that the animal, when not working, should find its own food on the village common, or on uncropped land, or in the jungle, when there is no fodder available on the holding. The by-products of cereals and pulses are stored and fed to cattle as long as they last; but very rarely indeed do cultivators resort to outside sources, for example, to the

supplies of baled dry grass available in forests. Thus, we were informed in the Central Provinces, where much grass is baled in the forests, that in one locality only did cultivators purchase it, or cut it for themselves. In Bihar and Orissa again, we were told of a case in which an abundance of grass could be got for the taking, but no use was made of it by local cultivators. In other provinces, we were informed that, in accordance with the general policy favoured by the forest departments, forest officers would gladly encourage grass cutting by villagers, but that no demand for it existed. These forest supplies are looked upon as famine reserves, not to be used in normal times. This difference between the cattle owners of the East and West must be kept in mind in considering all suggestions for cattle improvement. Actions which in many countries have by tradition become reprehensible, and which by law would now render owners liable to prosecution, are here regarded in an entirely different light; the neglected state of a poor man's cattle may win for him his neighbour's sympathy in his misfortune, but evokes no criticism.

The unfortunate effects, from the point of view of livestock improvement, of the attitude of mind we have described above need no emphasis. This attitude can only be combated by education and by leadership. The cultivator himself can scarcely be blamed if he finds it difficult to alter a point of view which has been inherited from a long line of ancestors. The handicaps imposed by nature add heavily to the handicaps imposed by tradition. Calamities such as drought followed by fodder famine in peninsular India, or floods in Bengal and Assam, have to be faced at frequent intervals, and in every season, in most parts of India, there is a period when fodder is so scarce that the generous feeding of cattle becomes almost impossible.

Apart from fodder shortage, the cultivator's efforts to improve his stock may be nullified by an outbreak of contagious disease. It is, indeed, the fear of loss from disease that tempts many to keep a larger stock than is absolutely necessary and thus increases the difficulty of feeding cattle properly. Finally, in only one tract in India, the north Gujarat districts of Bombay, is the enclosure of fields usual, so that a cultivator desirous of improving his cattle is faced with the formidable obstacle presented by common grazing. In pointing to the example of Britain, as was done by one of the most prominent scientific men in India when giving evidence before us in Bengal, it must be recalled that it was not until British cattle were, in the eighteenth century, protected by the introduction of root crops from the semi-starvation which, until then, had been the fate of many of them during the winter months, and not until enclosures made it possible for farmers in Britain to control the promiscuous mating of animals, that the breeding of the livestock for which that country is now famous became possible.

Let there then be no misunderstanding of the situation in approaching the subject of cattle improvement. It is not only his conservatism, his entirely natural inclination to follow the methods of his ancestors, that

handicaps the cultivator in bettering the condition of his cattle. The climate in which he works and the open-field system of the vast majority of his villages make the task of the would-be improver most difficult.

SUGGESTIONS

FEEDING.

FOR

179. The suggestions for the improvement of livestock which were made to us group themselves under the two heads, IMPROVEMENT IN CATTLE feeding and breeding. We shall deal first with those relating to the feeding of stock, for we are satisfied that no substantial improvement in the way of breeding is possible until cattle can be better fed. The crux of the situation is the period of scarcity which, in most, though not in all, parts of the country, is the two or three months preceding the break of the south-west monsoon. It is the hardship endured throughout this period that, more than anything else, makes the cow an irregular breeder, that reduces her natural milking qualities until she is unable to suckle a healthy calf, that leads to the scarcity of good bullocks, and that creates the urge which covers the village grazing grounds of India with the cattle deplored in every one of our volumes of evidence..

THE QUESTION OF ADDITIONS TO GRAZING AREAS.

the extension of

certain conditions,

180. Since it is the curtailment of uncultivated land as population has increased during the past century that is the most obvious cause of the present overstocking of village grazing grounds, it is not surprising that many witnesses have advocated grazing land. It is unquestioned that, given such an extension would relieve the situation. If the number of cattle were not to increase, if a sufficient area of grazing land could be found to carry the existing stock easily in normal seasons, if provision were made for supplementary fodder in years of scarcity, then it would not be a difficult task for skilled graziers, first of all to add greatly to the output of the grazing grounds by stocking them in rotation, and subsequently to effect marked improvement in the quality of the cattle. We have already alluded to the effects of climate on the grazing lands of India. They must always be poor, as compared with the pastures of moist temperate countries, but there is no question that they could be improved, and that, if part of the grass growing luxuriantly in the monsoon could be harvested and converted into good hay or silage, for use after vegetation dries up, they would carry more, and would certainly carry better, cattle than they now do. Some countries are so fortunately situated as regards climate that their grazing lands produce herbage of a kind capable of supporting good cattle at all seasons of the year. India does not come within this category. A few limited areas in the north supply fair grazing, but, in most parts of the country, the grass which grows in the monsoon either shrivels up entirely in the dry season or becomes so coarse as to be incapable of nourishing cattle properly. Thus it is clear that, even if it were a practicable measure to extend grazing lands largely in populous districts, and means could be found for restricting the increase in cattle which, in the absence of restrictions, would certainly follow, no adequate solution

of the problem set by cattle improvement would be forthcoming merely as a result of extending the grazing areas.

Those who point to the difficulties created by the extension of cultivation at the expense of natural grazing lands forget that it is not solely the contraction of these lands that has accentuated the difficulties of cattle owners; but-and this is the more important cause of the conditions which they describe-with the breaking up of land for tillage, the local population has increased, the need for draught cattle has become greater and, following an increase in draught cattle, cows and young stock have become more numerous. Where, in the past, the relatively few animals required in some particular area may have been supported without difficulty, the larger herds of stock now existing could not be maintained in equally good condition even if the grazing lands were restored to their original extent. In short, the former conditions could only be reproduced by depopulating the area and turning men adrift in order to make room for cattle. This is, indeed, a change which has been forced upon some countries by economic pressure; but, in India, apart from the sociological evils which a clearance of the rural population would create, a change in this direction would be absurd from the economic point of view. To effect an improvement in the conditions of the livestock, it would be necessary to drive cattle as well as men off the land, and the scanty produce of the acres restored to grass would leave the tract poorer, not richer, than before. It would be possible to make a close estimate of the loss in produce per acre which the conversion of cultivated land into grazing ground would be likely to involve in typical cases; but we are of opinion that such estimates would serve no useful purpose, for it is clearly impracticable to give effect to the wishes of those who desire to restore the former position and to dispossess cultivators of their fields in order that grazing grounds may be extended.

A number of witnesses suggested that the additional grazing areas required could be found by throwing forests open to cattle. In our chapter on Forests, we express the view that more use should be made of forests for grazing; but that the complete removal of all restrictions on grazing would have little effect in extending the existing grazing areas may be demonstrated by a reference to figures.

There are in British India (excluding Burma) about 300 million acres not occupied by crops. If current fallows are excluded, the area is about 256 million acres; of this area, forests closed to grazing account for 15 million acres, or about six per cent, of which about 7 million acres are open to grass cutters. A large proportion of the remaining area is either distant from cultivated tracts, or so densely occupied by forest trees that no grass grows on it. If an attempt were made to amend the estimate of the area actually available as grazing land in British India (which, excluding Burma, we put at about 146 million acres) by adding to it all the useful grazing land included in forests in which neither grazing nor grass cutting is now permitted, it is improbable that the addition could exceed five per cent; it is indeed likely that it would be much less.