Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c21: XIII. On the Drill Husbandry of Southern India
Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c21
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- English
XIII. On the Drill Husbandry of Southern India
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(By Captain Thos Halcott (dated 31st December, 1795 and 10th January, 1796).)
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Until lately I imagined the Drill plough to be a modern European invention; but a short time ago, riding over a field, I observed a Drill plough at work, very simple in its construction, which upon inquiry I find is in general use here, and has been so from time immemorial. This led me to make some further inquiries into their mode of Husbandry here, and I find the Drill Husbandry is universally practised in the Innacondah district, in the culture of all grains, except horse-grain, and is also used in the culture of tobacco, cotton, and the castor-oil plant. In the practice of this Husbandry they have two other ploughs in use here, exclusive of the Drill plough, and the common plough: one of these has a horizontal share, and immediately follows the Drill plough at work. It is set into the earth about the depth of seven or eight inches, and passes under three drills at once. It operates by agitating the earth so as to make the sides of the drills fall in, and cover the seed-grain, which it does so effectually as scarcely to leave any traces of a drill. The other plough alluded to, is used after the corn is about eight or ten inches high. It cuts up the weeds between three drills at once, and earths-up the roots of the corn at the same time. I cannot, by writing, give you an adequate description of the three ploughs, but will send you a set of them, if you wish it, accompanied by a man who has been in the practice of working them.
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I have some reason to think this Drill plough, simple as it is, possesses an advantage that the patent Drill plough does not; for I remember reading in some publication, that the patent Drill plough was defective in not dropping the grain equally; this plough has no defect of that kind. It has three teeth about eighteen inches long, and ten inches asunder; through the upper end of each tooth, near the back, is inserted a hollow bamboo of an inch in diameter, and about three feet in length, these three bamboos are set upright, and their upper ends are brought nearly together, in the form of a triangle, and inserted through the bottom of a wooden cup. This apparatus is supported and made steady by cords, in the way of shrouds, which lead to different parts of the plough.
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In working the plough, the cup is not filled with grain, but is fed by hand; this labour is performed by a woman, who walks on the left side of the plough with a bag or large pocket of grain before her, her right arm stretched out, and her wrist resting on the edge of the cup; her hand is filled with grain, and by moving her fingers she lets drop into the cup as much grain as supplies the three drills in due proportion. When the grain in her right hand is nearly expended, she fills it again from her left hand, observing never to take her right hand from the cup, while the plough is in motion, as that would leave a vacant space in the field. The Drill plough, which drops the grain by some piece of mechanism, will probably never sow a field so equally as is done in this way; and here is a remedy for the defect complained of in the English Drill plough. Whether the expense of two persons to work this plough, may or may not make against its being introduced into England, in preference to that now in use, I shall leave to be determined by those who are better acquainted with the subject; yet when it is considered, that supplying the cup is a labour performed by women, and how soon an acre is sown in this way, perhaps it might not be rejected on account of the additional expense, which would be but trifling. The first cost of a plough of this kind would be but a few shillings, whereas the patent Drill plough is an expensive machine.
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A gentleman who is now here on a visit, informs me that his grandfather, who farms part of his own estate, practices the Drill Husbandry, but found the Drill plough dropped the grain so unequally, that he laid it aside; and now, from a conviction of the superiority of the Drill Husbandry, uses a drill roll, which has a number of pegs upon it, and makes holes in straight lines, into which the seed-grain is dropped by hand. This is a tedious way, and he informs me has also its defects, as it is done by children whose hands, in the cold season when wheat is sown, are apt to get numb, and they often drop too many grains into each hole. However, many prefer this method to the Drill plough at present in use. Whether the plough with a horizontal share for covering in the drills is in use in England, I know not; if not, it will be an acquisition to those who practice the Drill Husbandry. I am also equally uninformed, whether the instrument used here for cutting up the weeds between the drills is known in England. It is simply three small mamoties set upon three teeth, placed at the same distance from each other as the teeth of the Drill plough.
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By my sending you these instruments, you will have a better idea of them than I can convey in writing; but as I am informed by a man from the Carnatic, that the Drill Husbandry is used in some parts of it to the westward, you may possibly have seen these ploughs, and in that case it will be unnecessary.
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You correspond occasionally with the Board of Agriculture; should you think these instruments would be useful in the Drill Husbandry at home, I will thank you to forward the set (The set of three ploughs was duly received by the Board of Agriculture in London and sketches of them were included (along with the above narrative) in the first volume of ‘Communications to the Board of Agriculture’ (1797). These sketches are reproduced here as Figures I and II. —Editor.) I shall send you, to them. If, however, you should find that these instruments have been already described in any publication, and that it is a matter known among Europeans, that the Drill Husbandry has long been practiced in this country, it will of course be worth no farther attention. But so far as I know at present, I am the first European that ever noticed it, for although it has been practiced under the eyes of every body in the Guntoor Circar, no one that I mentioned it to ever observed it before, nor did I observe it myself till lately.
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Jurrecondah, 10th January, 1796.
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This is not a rice country, but a Carnatic man, whose family practices the Drill Husbandry somewhere to the westward of Madras, informs me, that it is there used in the culture of rice, and is vastly superior to the method generally used of making a seed bed, and transplanting it by hand.
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At the commencement of the rains, he says, the paddy-field, after being well ploughed with the common plough, is sown by the drill plough, and left to the natural rains till it gets into ear, and it is then, and not till then, flooded by art; so there is not only a great saving of labour, but of water, which in years when the rains are scanty, is a more material saving, than even that of labour.
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He informed me, that the Drill Husbandry to the westward of Madras was only partially used, and that, chiefly by the wealthiest and most intelligent of the Ryots. I asked him, how it could happen that the poorer sort did not avail themselves of so obvious an advantage? He said that the people were poor and ignorant, and it could not be attempted by those who had less than three yoke of stout oxen, one for the Drill plough, another for the horizontal plough which follows, and allowance made for the accidental lameness and sickness of cattle; the weaker are not able in a miry soil, such as paddy-field, to draw the plough so straight as is required, and buffaloes are seldom so manageable as to plough very straight; these, said he, are the reasons why the Drill Husbandry is not more generally adopted in the culture of rice, for all agree in this, that it saves a great expense of labour and of water.
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Every thing in this district, except horse-grain, is cultivated by the Drill Husbandry; I may mention hemp in addition to the articles I before enumerated. Of its superiority in the culture of cotton, I had a convincing proof the other day, when I saw more weeds cut up by the mamoty plough before described, in an hour, than could have been done by hand by many coolies, in a whole day.
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This cotton was of a dwarf species, and sown by the Drill plough; I saw another field of a different kind, the drills about thirty inches asunder; this I understand was sown by hand; the drills were made by the common plough. In the same way is sown the castor-oil seed, the drills about a yard asunder; in short, the Drill Husbandry is practiced by every Ryot in this district, without a single exception.