Abstract

Every text book on agriculture emphasises the importance of prepara- tory cultivation for the raising of crops and every farmer will testify to the efficacy of the precultivation methods. In fact, the practice has become so time-worn and well established that any demand for proofs will be deemed as an outrage on truth. Yet it is true that an agronomist wishing to build up The science of cultivation will find little data to help him on while planning improvements. For example the black soil farmer in the Bellary district uses a grubber for the preparatory cultivation, while his neighbour in the Nandyal valley prefers to plough his fields every year with inversion ploughs. On the other hand, the ryot in Tinnevelly district cultivates his land, only with a country plough. Again, there are variations in the time of doing these operations. In the Ceded districts, all precultivations are mostly done soon after the harvesting of the crop in contrast to the practice in the Southern districts, of waiting for a soaking rain to start ploughing. There are no evidences to indicate whether these methods are followed because of the fact that the fore-fathers were in the habit of doing these and the sons should adopt them as a matter of tradition. Further it is not clearly known which operations are essential for crop production and what frequency in each will prove most remunerative. The lack of knowledge on many of the fundamental points precludes one from getting the maximum benefit from each cultivation operation, from substituting the non-paying one by a better method, and from omitting altogether the superfluities. It can be said that the existence of such lacunae stands in the way of the rapid spread of improvements of cultivation in India.

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