Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c21.12

c21.12

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.