Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c20.19

c20.19

The Hindoos have been long in possession of one of the most beautiful and useful inventions in agriculture. This is the Drill Plough. This instrument has been in use from the remotest times in India. I never however observed it in Malabar, as it is not required in rice cultivation in which its advantages have been superseded by transplanting. The system of transplanting is only in fact another method of obtaining the same object as by Drill Husbandry. It would be but just to adduce this, as another proof of the ingenuity of this people and of their successful attention to this branch of labour. They have different kinds of ploughs, both Drill and common, adapted to different sorts of seed, and soils.