The Waste Products of Agriculture -- Their

Utilization as Humus
by Albert Howard and Yeshwant D. Wad

Chapter 1

Introduction
The maintenance of the fertility of the soil is the first condition of any permanent system of
agriculture. In the ordinary processes of crop production, fertility is steadily lost; its continuous
restoration by means of manuring and soil management is therefore imperative.​
​
In considering how the ideal method of manuring and of soil management can be devised, the
first step is to bring under review the various systems of agriculture which so far have been
evolved. These fall for the most part into two main groups: (1) the methods of the Occident to
which a large amount of scientific attention has been devoted during the last fifty years; and (2)
the practices of the Orient which have been almost unaffected by western science. (In the general
organization of agriculture, Europe stands mid-way between the east and the west and provides,
as it were, the connecting link between these two methods of farming.) The systems of
agriculture of the Occident and of the Orient will now be briefly considered with a view of
extracting from each ideas and results which can be utilized in the evolution of the ideal method
of maintaining and increasing the fertility of the soil.

The Agricultural Systems of the Occident

The most striking characteristic of the agriculture of the west is the comparatively large size of
the holding. Large farms are the rule; small holdings are the exception. (The growth of
allotments for the production of vegetables in the neighbourhood of urban areas is a
comparatively recent phenomenon and only affects a small area.)​
​
The large farms of the west are for the most part engaged in the production of food and a few
raw materials like wool for the urban populations of the world, which are mainly concerned with
manufacture and trade. To produce these vast supplies, and at the same time to place them on the
markets at low rates, practically all the unoccupied temperate regions of the world, which are
suitable for the white races, have already been utilized. The best areas of North America, of the
Argentine, of South Africa and large tracts of Australia and practically the whole of New
Zealand have during the last hundred years been exploited to produce the endless procession of
cargoes of food and raw materials required by the great markets of the world.​
​
The weakness of this system of agriculture lies in the fact that it is new and has not yet received
the support which centuries of successful experience alone can provide. At first it was based on
the exploitation of the stores of organic matter accumulated by virgin land, which at the best
could not last for more than a limited number of years. Even now there is practically no attempt
to utilize the large quantities of wheat straw and other vegetable wastes for keeping up the store
of organic matter in the soil. The new areas of North America for example soon showed signs of
exhaustion. Manuring has become necessary as in the case of the older fields of Europe. To
supply the large quantities of combined nitrogen needed, all possible sources except the right one
-- the systematic conversion of the waste products of agriculture into humus -- have one after the
other been utilized: guano from the islands off the Peruvian coast, nitrate of soda from Chile,
sulphate of ammonia from coal and more recently synthetic nitrogen compounds obtained from
the atmosphere. These substances are supplemented by another class of nitrogenous organic
manures such as artificial guanos, dried blood and slaughter-house residues, oil cakes and wool
waste -- the by-products of agriculture -- and by another group of artificials -- the various
phosphatic and potassic fertilizers. These supplies of concentrated manures have enabled
agricultural production to be kept at a high level. The fact of their existence for a time tended to
distract attention from the fullest utilization of the by-products of the farm. Recently, however, a
change has taken place and a large amount of scientific effort has been devoted to the problems
which centre round the waste products, both animal and vegetable, of agriculture itself. The need
of keeping up the supply of organic matter in the soil is now widely recognized.​
​
After the large size of the holding and the necessity of manuring, the high cost of labour is
another leading characteristic of western farming. The number of men per square mile of
agricultural land who actually work is low. (The comparative figures of crop production per
worker for the five-year period preceding the War, prepared by the United States Department of
Agriculture, are instructive. The number of workers employed per 1,000 acres of crop land was
approximately 235 in Italy, 160 in Germany, 120 in France, 105 in England and Wales, 60 in
Scotland but only 41 in the United States. In Canada, according to Riddell, the 1911 figures show
that every 1,000 acres called for only 26 workers. This observer states that in the three prairie
provinces [Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan] the figures are even more striking: the area under
field crops was 17,677,091 acres, and the numbers engaged in agriculture was 283,472, so that
each person so employed was responsible for 62 acres. Every 1,000 acres required only 16
workers. Since these data were published, further statements have appeared from which it would
seem that the size of the working population in agriculture in North America has shrunk still
further.) This state of things has arisen from the dearness and scarcity of labour, which has
naturally led to the study of labour-saving devices including the use of machinery. Whenever a
machine can be invented which saves human labour its spread is rapid. Engines of various kinds
are the rule everywhere. The inevitable march of the combine-harvester, in all the
wheat-producing areas of the world, is the latest example of the mechanization of the agriculture
of the west.​
​
Another feature of this extensive system of large-scale agriculture is the development of food
preservation processes, of transport and of marketing, by which the products of agriculture are
cheaply and rapidly moved from the field to the centres of distribution and consumption. There is
no great dearth of capital at any stage. Money can always be found for any new machine and for
any new development which is likely to return a dividend. Land and capital are abundant;
efficient transport and good markets abound. The comparatively small supply of suitable labour
and its high cost provide the chief agricultural problems of the west.​
​
This system of agriculture is essentially modern and has developed largely as one of the
consequences of the discovery of the steam engine and the rapid exploitation of the supplies of
coal, oil and water-power. It has only been made possible by the existence of vast areas of virgin
land in parts of the earth's surface on which the white races can live and work. As already
mentioned the weak point in this method of crop production is that it is new and lacks the
backing which only a long period of practical experience can supply. Mother Earth is provided
with an abundant store of reserve fertility which can always be exploited for a time. Every really
successful system of agriculture however must be based on the long view, otherwise the day of
reckoning is certain.​
​
Side by side with this method of utilizing the land there has been a great development of science.
Efforts have been made to enlist the help of a number of separate sciences in studying the
problems of agriculture and in increasing the production of the soil. This has entailed the
foundation of numerous experiment stations, which every year pour out a large volume of printed
results and advice to the farmer. At first the scientific workers naturally devoted themselves to
solving local problems and to furnishing scientific explanations of various agricultural practices.
This phase is now passing. A new note is beginning to appear in the publications of the
experiment stations, namely that of direction and advice which can only be advanced by men
whose education and training combine the ideas of science with the aims of the statesman. The
feeling is not only growing but is being expressed that it is no longer the business of science
merely to solve the problems of the moment. Something more is needed. The chief function of
science in the agriculture of the future is to provide intelligent direction in general policy and to
point the way.

The Agricultural Systems of the Orient

Peasant Holdings
The chief feature of the agricultural systems of the east is the small size of the holding. The
relation between man-power and cultivated area in India is given in Table I. In this table, based
on the Census Report of 1921, the number of workers and the acreage cultivated have been
calculated for the chief provinces of British India. Incidentally these figures illustrate how
intense is the struggle for existence in this portion of the tropics.​

Table I.
The Relation between Man-power and Cultivated Area in India

Provinces Number of acres cultivated by 100 ordinary

cultivators

Bombay 1,215

North-West Frontier Province 1,122

Punjab 918

Central Provinces 848

Burma 565

Madras 491

Bengal 312

Bihar and Orissa 309

Assam 296

United Provinces 251

These minute holdings are frequently cultivated by extensive methods (those suitable for large
areas) which neither utilize the full energies of man and beast nor the potential fertility of the
soil. Such a system of agriculture can only result in poverty. The obvious line of advance is the
gradual introduction of more intensive methods, for which the supply of suitable manure, within
the means of the average cultivator, is bound to prove an important factor.

If we turn to the Far East, to China and Japan, a similar system of small holdings is accompanied
by an even more intense pressure of population both human and bovine. In the introduction to
Farmers of Forty Centuries, King states that the three main islands of Japan had in 1907 a
population of 46,977,003, maintained on 20,000 square miles of cultivated fields. This is at the
rate of 2,349 to the square mile or more than three people to each acre. (These figures agree very
closely with those quoted in the Japan Year Book of 1931 in which the number of persons per
square kilometre is given as 969: equivalent to 2,433 to the square mile.) In addition Japan fed
on each square mile of cultivation a very large animal population -- 69 horses and 56 cattle,
nearly all employed in labour; 825 poultry; 13 swine, goats and sheep. Although no accurate
statistics are available in China, the examples quoted by King reveal a condition of affairs not
unlike Japan. In the Shantung Province, a farmer with a family of twelve kept one donkey, one
cow and two pigs on 2.5 acres of cultivated land -- a density of population at the rate of 3,072
people, 256 donkeys, 256 cattle and 512 pigs per square mile. The average of seven Chinese
holdings visited gave a maintenance capacity of 1,783 people, 212 cattle or donkeys and 399
pigs -- nearly 2,000 consumers and 400 rough food transformers per square mile of farm land. In
comparison with these remarkable figures, the corresponding statistics for 1900 in the case of the
United States per square mile were: population 61, horses and mules 30.

The problems of tropical agriculture for the most part relate to small holdings. The main purpose
of this peasant agriculture is crop production; animal husbandry is much less important. In India
the crops grown fall into two classes -- (1) food and fodder crops and (2) money crops. The
former includes, in order of area: rice, millets, wheat, pulses and fodder crops, barley and maize
and sugar-cane. The money crops are more varied; cotton and oil seeds are the most important,
followed by jute and other fibres, tobacco, tea, opium, indigo and coffee. It will be seen that food
and fodder crops comprise 82 per cent of the total area under crops and that money crops, as far
as extent is concerned, are relatively unimportant.

Table II.
Agricultural Statistics of British India, 1926-27

Area, in acres, under food and fodder crops

Rice 78,502,000

Millets 38,776,000

Wheat 24,181,000

Gram 14,664,000

Pulses and other good grains 29,154,000

Fodder crops 8,940,000

Condiments, spices, fruits, vegetables, and 7,537,000

misc. food crops
 Barley 6,387,000

Maize 5,555,000

Sugar 3,041,000

Total, food and fodder crops 216,737,000

Area, in acres, under money crops

Cotton 15,687,000

Oil seeds, chiefly rape and mustard, sesamum, 14,999,000

groundnuts and linseed

Jute and other fibres 4,411,000

Dyes, tanning materials, drugs, narcotics and 1,729,000

miscellaneous crops

Tobacco 1,055,000

Tea 738,000

Opium 59,000

Indigo 104,000

Coffee 91,000

Total, money crops 38,873,000

The primary function of Indian agriculture is to supply the cultivator and his cattle with food.
Compared with this duty all other matters are subsidiary. The houses are built of mud, thatched
with grass and are almost devoid of furniture. Expenditure on clothing and warmth is, on account
of the customs of the country and the nature of the climate, much smaller than in European
countries. Nevertheless, the cultivators require a little money with which to pay the land revenue
and to purchase a few necessaries in the village markets. Hence the growth of money crops to the
extent of about one-fifth the total cultivated area. (See Table III below.) The produce, after
conversion into cash, is afterwards either worked up in the local mills or exported. To some
extent food crops are also money crops. The population of the towns and cities is largely fed
from the produce of the soil, while in addition a small percentage of the total food grains
produced is exported to foreign countries. In some crops like sugar-cane, the total out-turn is
insufficient for the towns and large quantities of sugar are imported from Java, Mauritius and the
continent of Europe.

Table III.
Yield of the More Important Crops of India, 1926-27

Food crops

Rice 29,636,000 tons

Wheat 8,941,000

Millets 7,806,000

Gram 3,979,000

Barley 2,550,000

Sugar 3,234,000

Maize 1,919,000

Money crops

Jute 12,132,000 bales (each 400 lb.)

Cotton 4,960,000 (each 400 lb.)

Groundnuts 2,035,000 tons.

Rape and mustard 986,000 tons.

Linseed 407,000 tons.

Sesamum. 411,000 tons.

Castor seed 128,000 tons.

Tea 392,917,800 lb.

Coffee 34,286,806 lb.

Rubber 23,002,700 lb.

Indigo 18,100 cwt.

When we come to the details of soil management, a further striking difference between the
methods in vogue in the west and on the peasant holdings of the east is at once manifest. In
China, fertility has for centuries been maintained at a high level without the importation of
artificial manures. Although it was not till 1888, after a protracted controversy lasting thirty
years, that western science finally accepted as proved the important part played by pulse crops in
enriching the soil, nevertheless centuries of experience had taught the peasants of the east the
same lesson. The leguminous crop in the rotation is everywhere one of their old fixed practices.
Moreover, on the alluvium of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the deep, spreading root-system of the
pigeon pea (Cajanus indicus Spreng.) is utilized by the peasantry as an efficient substitute for the
periodical subsoil ploughing which these closely-packed, silt-like soils require. In the case of the
best cultivators, the general soil management and particularly the conservation and utilization of
combined nitrogen has already reached a high level. This has been described, in the case of the
United Provinces of India, by Clarke in a recent paper which has been reproduced as Appendix
B. In China and Japan not only the method of soil management but also the great attention that is
paid to the systematic preparation, outside the field, of food materials for the crop from all kinds
of vegetable and animal wastes compelled the admiration of one of the most brilliant of the
agricultural investigators of the last generation. The results are set out by King in his unfinished
work -- Farmers of Forty Centuries -- which should be prescribed as a textbook in every
agricultural school and college in the world.

Another feature of this agriculture is the cultivation of rice wherever the soil and water-supply
permit. In the scientific consideration of the methods of soil management under which the rice
crop of the Orient is produced, practical experience at first seems to contradict one of the great
principles of the agricultural science of the Occident, namely the dependence of cereals on
nitrogenous manures. Large crops of rice are produced in many parts of India on the same land
year after year without the addition of any manure whatever. The rice fields of the country export
paddy in large quantities to the centres of population or abroad, but there is no corresponding
import of combined nitrogen.

(Taking Burma as an example of an area exporting rice beyond seas, during the twenty years
ending 1924, about 25,000,000 tons of paddy have been exported from a tract roughly
10,000,000 acres in area. As unhusked rice contains about 1.2 per cent of nitrogen the amount of
this element, shipped overseas during twenty years or destroyed in the burning of the husk, is in
the neighbourhood of 300,000 tons. As this constant drain of nitrogen is not made up for by the
import of manure, we should expect to find a gradual loss of fertility. Nevertheless this does not
take place either in Burma or in Bengal, where rice has been grown on the same land year after
year for centuries. Nearly the soil must obtain fresh supplies of nitrogen from somewhere,
otherwise the crop would cease to grow. The only likely source is fixation from the atmosphere,
probably in the submerged algal film on the surface of the mud. This is one of the problems of
tropical agriculture which calls for early investigation.)
Another important difference between the east and the west concerns the supply of labour. In the
Orient it is everywhere adequate, as would naturally follow from the great density of the rural
population. Indeed in India it is so abundant that if the time wasted by the cultivators and their
cattle for a single year could be calculated as money, at the local rates of labour, a perfectly
colossal figure would be obtained. One of the problems underlying the development of
agriculture in India is the discovery of the best means of utilizing this constant drain, in the shape
of wasted hours, for increasing crop production. There is therefore no lack of human labour in
developing the agriculture of the east. Another favourable factor is the existence of excellent
breeds of work-cattle and of the buffalo. (The buffalo is the milch cow of the Orient and is
capable not only of useful labour in the cultivation of rice, but also of living and producing large
quantities of rich milk on a diet on which the best dairy cows of Europe and America would
starve. The digestive processes of the buffalo is a subject which appears to have escaped the
attention of the investigators of animal nutrition.)

The last characteristic of this ancient system of agriculture is lack of money. Again there is a
great contrast between the east and the west. There is little or no spare capital for the
improvement of the holding. Over large tracts of India at any rate, the cultivators are in the hands
of the moneylender and indebtedness is the rule. For many years one of the pre-occupations of
Government has been the discovery of safeguards by which the cultivator can be saved from the
worst consequences of his own folly -- reckless borrowing for unproductive purposes -- and
maintained on the land. The recent development of co-operation and the rapid increase in the
number of primary credit societies has only been possible because of this volume of
indebtedness.

Plantations

While small holdings, accompanied by a dense population, are an important feature of eastern
agriculture, nevertheless there are exceptions. Throughout this portion of the tropics European
enterprise has removed the original forest and established in its place extensive plantations of
such crops as sugar-cane, tea, rubber and coffee. The labour for these estates is obtained from
indigenous sources; the capital and management are contributed by Europeans. Plantations of
this kind are common all over the east and are an important feature of the agriculture of Java,
Ceylon, the Federated Malay States, Assam and the uplands of Southern India. One of the
features of this agriculture is the attention paid to manurial problems. Comparatively large sums
of money are expended every year in the purchase of artificial manures, mainly for keeping up
the supply of combined nitrogen. During a tour in Ceylon in 1908, when visits were paid by the
senior author to a number of tea estates, the managers invariably produced their manurial
programme on which suggestions were always invited. Ceylon at that time offered a tragic
example of the damage which results from uncontrolled tropical rainfall on sloping land, from
which the forest canopy had been removed without providing a proper system of terracing
combined with surface-drainage. Over large areas of hilly country, formerly forest and now
exclusively under tea, practically the whole of the valuable surface soil rich in humus had been
lost by denudation. The tea plant was producing crops from the relatively poor subsoil,
supplemented by the constant application of expensive manures.​
​
In a recent review of this question in Crop Production in India published in 1924, the damage
which has resulted from erosion on the plantations of the Orient was referred to (pp. 14-5) as
follows:

"It is in the planting areas of the east, however, that the most striking examples of soil denudation
are to be found. Instances of damage to the natural capital of the country are to be seen on the tea
estates near Darjeeling, on the hill-sides in Sikkim on the upper terraces in the vale of Kashmir,
in the Kumaon Hilis, on the tea estates in Ceylon and Assam, and in the planting districts of
Southern India and the Federated Malay States. In most of these areas forest land was so
abundant that the need for the preservation of the soil was not at first recognized. Thanks to the
efforts of Hope, a former scientific officer employed by the tea industry in Assam the control of
the drainage and the checking of erosion are now widely recognized and are being dealt with by
the planters in many parts of India. A great impetus to this work was given by the publication in
India of a detailed account of the methods in use by the Dutch planters in Java, where the
terracing and drainage of sloping land, under tea and other crops has been carried to a high stage
of perfection. In this island the area of land available for planting is strictly limited, while the
feeding of the large indigenous population is always a serious problem. As a consequence the
development of the island is very strictly controlled by the Government, and one of the
conditions of planting new forest lands is the provision of a suitable system of terraces combined
with surface-drainage. The advantage is not all on the side of the State. The manuring of tea soils
in Java is far less necessary than in Ceylon and India, while one important consequence of the
retention of the valuable soil made by the forest is healthy growth, which suffers remarkably
little damage from insect and fungoid pests."

Undeveloped Areas

Very large stretches of the Orient are still under forest and at present carry a very small
population, supported by hunting, fishing and by the small cultivated areas surrounding the
villages. These undeveloped forest areas occur everywhere, particularly in the Malay
Archipelago, the Federated Malay States, Burma and the low country of Ceylon. In the search for
the ideal method of manuring in the tropics, the greatest care will have to be taken to preserve
the valuable surface soil whenever the forest canopy has to be removed for the creation of new
cultivated land. Some at any rate of these potentially rich tracts are almost certain to be taken up
during the present century. They will therefore provide ample opportunities of applying any
lessons in soil management, which science can extract from experiment and from experience.
The serious mistakes of the past must not be repeated when the time comes for developing the
vast areas of tropical forest still untouched.​
​
It will be evident that the systems of agriculture of the west and of the east are very different and
that the two have little or nothing in common. In a sense these two methods of managing land
remind one of the two sides of a coin. The one supplements the other: each can be regarded as a
part of one great whole. Clearly when attempting to evolve the ideal system of manuring and soil
management of the future, both of these widely different methods of agriculture must be studied.
This has been done by the senior author for the last twenty-six years in various parts of India --
on the alluvium of the Indo-Gangetic plain at Pusa in Bihar, on the loess soils of the Quetta
Valley on the Western Frontier and on the black cotton soils of peninsular India at Indore. The
chief climatic factors at Indore are represented in Plate II. The climate of Quetta resembles
generally that of Persia, where the rainfall is received mainly during the winter months, often in
the form of snow. At these three centres a method of utilizing all the vegetable and animal wastes
of the holding has gradually been evolved. The latest scientific work of the Occident and
particularly that recently accomplished at the experiment station of New Jersey, together with the
practices in vogue in India and the Far East, have been welded together and synthesized into a
system for the continuous manufacture of manure throughout the year so that it forms an integral
part of the industry of agriculture.​

Plate I. Rainfall, temperature, humidity and drainage, Pusa, 1922.

Full-size image
 Plate II. Rainfall, ground-water level, temperature and humidity, Indore, Central India, 1928.

Full-size image

(In considering all this information -- the various agricultural systems in use at the present time,
as well as the large volume of scientific papers dealing with manurial questions, which have been
poured out by the experiment stations during the last fifty years, we have been impressed by the
evils inseparable from the present fragmentation of any large agricultural problem and its attack
by way of the separate science. All this seems to follow from the excessive specialization which
is now taking place, both in the teaching and in the application of science. In the training given to
the students and in much of the published work, the tendency of knowing more and more about
less and less is every year becoming more marked. For this reason any review of the problem of
increasing soil fertility is rendered peculiarly difficult, not only by the vast mass of published
papers but also by their fragmentary and piecemeal nature.)

No extra labour is required in our manure factory. No imported chemicals such as Adco are
needed in this process. No capital is required at any stage of the manufacture. The methods now
in use at Indore form the main subject of this book, which also attempts to deal with a number of
related matters such as -- the role of organic matter in the soil, the methods of replenishing the
supply of organic matter now in use and the recent investigations which have been carried out on
the conditions necessary for converting raw organic residues into humus which can be
immediately nitrified in the soil and so made use of by the plant. The Indore process can easily
be carried out, not only in the tropics but also on the small holdings of the temperate regions and
on the allotments (provided space is made available) in the neighbourhood of urban areas, where
it is now the practice to burn most of the vegetable waste. How rapidly the system can be
introduced into the farming systems of the Occident is a question to which no answer can be
given until the ideas in this book have been fully tried out in western agriculture. It is not
impossible that they may founder for a time on the present high cost of labour. The method
however is in full accord with the well-marked tendency in western agriculture towards a more
intensive production. The inevitable change over from extensive to intensive methods has
already begun. For production to be more economical, the acre yield must be increased. Already
in the United States the suggestion has been made that the line of advance in crop production lies
in restricting the area cultivated. A portion of the impoverished prairie lands should go back to
grass. The crops needed should be raised from a smaller area. These ideas will become
practicable the moment the farmer learns how to utilize the waste products of his fields in
increasing the fertility of the soil. This is the greatest need of agriculture at the present day.

Bibliography

Clarke, G. -- 'Some Aspects of Soil Improvement in Relation to Crop Production,' Proc. of the
Seventeenth Indian Science Congress, Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta,1930, p. 23.​
​
Ducker, H. C. -- 'Soil Erosion Problems of the Makwapala and Port Herold Experiment Stations,
Nyasaland,' Empire Cotton Growing Review, 8, 1931, p. 10.​
​
Felsinger, E. O. -- 'Memorandum on a System of Drainage Calculated to Control the Flow of
Water on Up-country Estates, with a view to reducing Soil Erosion to a Minimum,' Tropical
Agriculturist, 71, 1928, p. 221; 74, 1930, p. 68.​
​
Howard, A. -- Crop Production in India, a Critical Survey of its Problems, Oxford University
Press, 1924.​
​
Howard, A. and Howard, G. L. C. -- The Development of Indian Agriculture, Oxford University
Press, 1929.​
​
King, F. H. -- Farmers of Forty Centuries or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan,
London, 1926.​
​
Lipman, J. G. -- 'Soils and Men,' Proc. of the Inter. Congress on Soil Science, Washington, D.C.,
1928, p. 18.​
​
Matthaei, L. E. -- More Mechanization in Farming, International Labour Review, Geneva, 23,
1931, p.324.​
​
Percy, Lord Eustace -- Education at the Cross Roads, London, 1930.​
​
Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India, Calcutta, 1928.​
​
Riddell, W. A. -- 'The Influence of Machinery on Agricultural Conditions in North America,'
International Labour Review, Geneva, 13, 1926, p. 309.​
​
Wagner, W. -- Die Chinesische Landwirtschaft, Berlin, 1926, p 222
Chapter 2

Organic Matter and Soil Fertility

The ancients and the moderns are in the completest agreement as to the importance of organic
matter in maintaining the fertility of the soil. This is evident when the methods of crop
production in the time of the Romans are compared with the views now held by many of the
leading experiment station workers in the United States and other parts of the world. In Roman
times, the management of the manure heap had already reached an advanced stage. In 40 B.C.
Varro drew attention to the great importance of the complete decay of manure before it was
applied to the land. To bring this about, the manure heap, during the period of storage, had to be
kept moist. In A.D. 90 Columella emphasized the importance of constructing the pits (in which
farmyard manure was stored) in such a manner that drying out was impossible. He mentions the
need of turning this material in summer to facilitate decay, and suggested that ripened manure
should always be used for corn, while the fresh material could be applied with safety to grass
land. The Romans therefore not only understood the importance of organic matter in crop
production but had gone a long way towards mastering the principle that, to obtain the best
results, it is necessary to arrange for the decay of farmyard manure before it is applied to arable
land. It is interesting to turn from the writings of the ancients to the account of the symposium on
'Soil Organic Matter and Green-manuring' arranged by the American Society of Agronomy at
Washington D.C. on 22 November 1928, the main results of which appeared in the Journal of the
American Society of Agronomy of October 1929. Without exception, the investigators who took
part in this conference laid the greatest emphasis on the importance of keeping up the supply of
organic matter in the soil, and on discovering the most effective and the most economical method
of doing this under the various conditions, as regards moisture, which the soils of the United
States present.​
​
During the 2,000 years which have elapsed since Varro wrote in 40 B.C. and the American
investigators met in 1928, there has occurred only one brief period during which the role of
organic matter was to some extent forgotten. This took place after Liebig's Chemistry in its
Application to Agriculture and Physiology first appeared in 1840. Liebig emphasized the fact
that plants derive their carbon from the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere and advanced the view
that, in order that a soil may remain fertile, all that is necessary is to return to it, in the form of
manure, the mineral constituents and the nitrogen that have been taken away in the crop. The
discovery of the true origin of the carbon of plants not unnaturally suggested that the organic
matter in the soil was of little consequence. Nitrogen and minerals only remained, the latter
being found in the plant ashes. When therefore analyses of the crops had been made, it would be
possible to draw up tables showing the farmer what he must add in the way of nitrogen and
minerals in any particular case. These views and the controversies to which they gave rise,
combined with the results of the Rothamsted experiments (started by Lawes and Gilbert in 1843)
led to the adoption of artificial manures by many of the farmers of Europe. The Rothamsted
experiments undoubtedly proved that if the proper quantities of combined nitrogen, phosphates
and potash are added to the soil, satisfactory crops for many years can be obtained without the
addition of organic matter beyond that afforded by the roots of the crops grown. Further, the
results of hundreds of trials, in the course of ordinary farming practice, confirmed the fact that
the judicious addition of nitrogenous artificial fertilizers can, in the great majority of cases, be
relied on to increase the yield. It was only natural that results of this kind, combined with the
important fact that the application of artificials often pays in practice, produced a marked effect
on current opinion and also on teaching. For nearly a century after Liebig's ideas first appeared,
the majority of agricultural chemists held that all that mattered in obtaining maximum yields was
the addition of so many pounds of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to the acre. Beyond this
the only other factor of importance was the liming of acid soils. The great development of the
artificial manure industry followed as a matter of course.​
​
The place of organic matter in the soil economy was forgotten. The old methods of maintaining
soil fertility naturally fell into the background.​
​
For a time all seemed to go well. It is only in comparatively recent years that experiment station
workers have begun to understand the part played in crop production by the micro-organisms of
the soil and to realize that the supply of artificials is not the whole story. Something more is
needed. The need for the maintenance of the supply of organic matter soon became apparent. The
view now beginning to be held is that, only after the supply of organic matter has been
adequately provided for, will the full benefit of artificials be realized. There appears to be a great
field for future experiment in the judicious use of artificials to land already in a fair state of
fertility.​
​
In all this however there was one important exception. In the Orient, the artificial manure phase
had practically no influence on indigenous practice and passed unheeded. The Liebig tradition
failed to influence the farmers of forty centuries. No demand for these products of the west exists
in China. At the present day it would be difficult to purchase such a substance as sulphate of
ammonia in the bazaars of rural India.

Soil Humus, its Origin and Nature

What is the origin and nature of the organic matter or soil 'humus' and what part does it play in
soil fertility? These matters form the subject of the present chapter.​
​
In the presentation which follows, the fullest use has been made of (1) one of the papers of
Waksman (Paper No. 276 of the Journal Series, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station,
Department of Soil Chemistry and Bacteriology, afterwards published in Soil Science, 22, 1926,
p. 123) and (2) of the symposium on soil organic matter and green-manuring which appeared in
the issue of the Journal of the American Society of Agronomy of October 1929. These important
contributions to the subject have made it easy briefly to sketch the necessary scientific
background for the presentation of the Indore process.​
​
The organic matter found in the soil consists of two very different classes of material: (1) the
constituents of plants and animals which have been introduced into the soil and are undergoing
decomposition; various unstable intermediate products which have been formed under certain
environmental conditions; substances like lignified cellulose which are more resistant to
decomposition and which may persist in the soil for some time; and (2) number of valuable
materials which have been synthesized by the numerous groups of micro-organisms which form
the soil population. The soil organic matter is thus a heterogeneous mass of substances which is
constantly undergoing changes in composition. When its composition reaches a certain stage of
equilibrium, it becomes more or less homogeneous and is then incorporated into the soil as
'humus'. This definition of soil organic matter, which is due to Waksman, is of great importance.
Soil organic matter or 'humus' is not merely the residue left when vegetable and animal residues
decay. It contains in addition the valuable materials synthesized and left behind by the fungi and
bacteria of the soil population. Moreover it is a product of the general soil conditions which
obtain in any particular locality, and therefore varies in composition and character from one soil
type to another. It is not the same all over the world. The soil humus for example of the black
cotton soils of India is not identical with that of the alluvium of the Indo-Gangetic plain.​
​
The various steps in the formation of soil organic matter are somewhat as follows. When the
fresh remains of plants or animals are added to the soil, a portion of this organic matter is at once
attacked by a large number of the micro-organisms present. Rapid and intense decomposition
ensues. The nature of these organisms depends on the soil conditions (mechanical and chemical
composition and physical condition) and on the soil environment (moisture content, reaction and
aeration, and the presence of available minerals). The decomposition processes can best be
followed by measuring one of the end-products of the reaction -- carbon dioxide. The rate of
evolution of this gas depends on the nature of the organic matter, on the organisms which take
part in the process and on the soil environmental conditions. As soon as the readily
decomposable constituents of the plant and animal remains (sugars, starches, pectins, celluloses,
proteins, amino-acids) have disappeared, the speed of decomposition diminishes and a condition
of equilibrium tends to become established. At this stage only those constituents of the original
organic matter, such as the lignins which are acted upon slowly, are left. These and the
substances synthesized by the micro-organisms together form the soil humus and then undergo
only a slow transformation during which a moderate but constant stream of carbon dioxide is
liberated. At the same time the nitrogen of this soil humus is similarly converted into ammonia
which, under favourable conditions, is then transformed into nitrate. It will be clear therefore that
the soil organic matter or humus is a manufactured product and that its composition is not
everywhere the same, but will vary with the soil conditions under which it is produced. Like all
manufactured articles, it must be properly made if it is to be really effective. Too much attention
therefore cannot be paid to its preparation.​
​
After the production of humus and its incorporation into the soil mass, the next step is its
utilization by the crop. This can only take place when this organic matter is decomposed by the
micro-organisms of the soil. This process is very slow, as can be seen by placing a quantity of
soil under favourable environmental conditions and measuring the rate of decomposition, either
by the evolution of carbon dioxide or by the accumulation of ammonia and nitrate nitrogen.
Since the ratio between the carbon and nitrogen content of the humus in normal cultivated soils
is more or less constant, approaching 10:1, the evolution of carbon dioxide will be accompanied
by the liberation of available nitrogen. This oxidation of the carbon and of the nitrogen is
comparatively very slow, as only slow-growing groups of microorganisms are capable of
attacking it. These organisms are aerobic and moreover can only work effectively when the
general soil reaction is favourable. Their activities are therefore hastened in non-acid peat soils
by draining, in acid peat soils by draining and liming, and in acid soils by liming.​
​
It will be clear that the utilization of vegetable and animal wastes in crop production involves
two definite steps: (1) the formation of humus and its incorporation into the soil and (2) the slow
oxidation of this product accompanied by the production of available nitrogen. Both of these
stages are brought about by micro-organisms for which suitable environmental conditions are
essential. The requirements of the first phase -- the preparation of humus and its incorporation
into the soil mass -- are so intense that if the process takes place in the soil itself, it is certain to
interfere with the development of the crop. The needs of the second phase -- the utilization of
humus -- are much less intense and can proceed in the soil without harm to the growing plant.
From the point of view of crop production therefore, it will be a distinct advantage to separate
these two stages and to prepare the humus outside the field. In this matter the Chinese have
anticipated the teachings of western science. The cultivators of the Orient were the first to grasp
and act upon the master idea that the growth of a crop involves two separate processes, the
preparation of food-materials from vegetable and animal wastes which must be done outside the
field, and the actual growing of the crop. Only in this way can the soil be protected from
overwork.

The Formation of Humus as a Result of the Synthesizing Activities of

Micro-organisms
Although the important part played by microorganisms in the formation of soil humus has only
very recently been fully understood, nevertheless the older literature contains a number of useful
contributions to the subject. Most of these early papers appeared towards the end of the last
century; many of them related to other branches of knowledge and were not written from the
point of view of agriculture. They have been summed up by Waksman, from whose paper the
following account has been prepared. Post-Ramann and Muller considered that the 'humus'
bodies obtained from soil often consist of the chitinous remains of insects and animal excrete.
Wettstein and Winterstein showed that chitin is characteristic of various fungi and not of
bacteria. Schmook advanced the view that the protein nitrogen in the soil was mostly present in
the bodies of bacteria and protozoa. Trussov showed that the protoplasm of fungi is a source of
humus in the soil. Schreiner and Storey suggested that various characteristic constituents of the
soil are probably synthesized by micro-organisms.​
​
The earlier work on this subject has been considerably developed, first by Falck and more
recently by Waksman. Falck showed that organic matter in forest soils can be transformed into
different types of humus in at least three ways: (1) The yearly additions of raw organic matter are
completely decomposed by fungi (microcriny) accompanied by the synthesis of fungus
protoplasm, which serves as an excellent fertilizer for the forest trees. In this process the
celluloses are decomposed completely, whereas the lignins are more resistant. (2) The
decomposition of the organic matter is begun by fungi and then carried on by lower invertebrates
and bacteria (anthracriny). The fungus mycelium as well as the original organic matter are
devoured by various larvae producing a dark 'humus' mass which, in the presence of bases, is
oxidized by bacteria with the ultimate liberation of carbon dioxide and the formation of nitrate.
(3) The formation of peat (anthrogeny), which Falck explains as resulting from the absence of an
abundant fungus development. Waksman carried the subject still further and called attention to
the similarity between the carbon-nitrogen ratio of the soil organic matter and that of the
protoplasm of the soil fungi and other micro-organisms, and suggested that these probably make
up a large part of the soil 'humus'. He further pointed out that when cellulose is added to the soil,
it decomposes only in proportion to the available combined nitrogen present. This is because the
decomposition is brought about by fungi and bacteria, both of which require combined nitrogen.
The ratio between the amount of cellulose decomposed and the nitrogen required is about 30:1,
so that, for every thirty parts of cellulose decomposed by the fungi and bacteria, one part of
inorganic nitrogen (ammonium salt or nitrate) will be built up into microbial protoplasm. In the
presence of sufficient combined nitrogen and under aerobic conditions, the decomposition of
cellulose is very rapid. The same is true of vegetable wastes like straw, maize stalks, wood
products and other materials rich in celluloses, pentosans and lower carbohydrates but poor in
nitrogen. These facts explain the injurious effects on crop growth which follow the addition of
straw and green-manure to the soil. The decomposition of these materials removes large
quantities of combined nitrogen from the soil solution. This nitrogen is then temporarily stored in
the form of microbial protoplasm, when for a time it is placed beyond the reach of the growing
crop.​
​
Since Waksman's paper appeared in 1926, an important contribution to this subject has recently
been made by Phillips, Weite and Smith. The results of these investigators (which agree with our
experience at Indore) has removed the impression that lignin is comparatively resistant to the
action of micro-organisms. Under suitable conditions, soil organisms are capable of
decomposing lignin as found in lignified plant materials (cornstalks, oat hulls, corn cobs and
wheat straw), the rate of decomposition being as great as that of cellulose and pentosans.

The Role of Humus in the Soil

From the immediately practical point of view, the actual role of humus in the soil is of even
greater interest than its formation, nature and decomposition. This material influences soil
fertility in the following ways:

1.​ The physical properties of humus exert a favourable influence on the tilth,
moisture-retaining capacity and temperature of the soil as well as on the nature of the soil
solution.
2.​ The chemical properties of humus enable it to combine with the soil bases, and to interact
with various salts. It thereby influences the general soil reaction, either acting directly as
a weak organic acid or by combining with bases liberating the more highly dissociating
organic acids.
3.​ The biological properties of humus offer not only a habitat but also a source of energy,
nitrogen and minerals for various micro-organisms.

These properties -- physical, chemical and biological -- confer upon humus a place apart in the
general work of the soil including crop production. It is not too much to say that this material
provides the very basis of successful soil management and of agricultural practice.

The Washington Symposium on Soil Organic Matter

Once the origin and nature of the soil organic matter is understood and the importance of this
material in soil fertility is appreciated, the next step is to consider how best to make use of this
information and to weld it into farming practice. With this object in view a symposium on soil
organic matter and green-manuring was arranged at Washington D.C. on 22 November 1928,
when the following papers were read and discussed:

1.​ 'The Relation of Soil Type to Organic Matter.' C. F. Marbut.

2.​ 'Organic Matter Problems in Humid Soils.' T. Lyttleton Lyon.
3.​ 'Organic Matter Problems Under Dry-Farming Conditions.' J. C. Russell
4.​ 'Organic Matter Problems in Irrigated Soils.' P. S. Burges
 5.​ 'Chemical and Microbiological Principles Underlying the Use of Green-Manures.' S. A.
Waksman (by title only).
6.​ 'Influence of Organic Manures on the Chemical and Biological Properties of Arid Soils.'
J. E. Greaves.
7.​ 'Green-Manuring and Its Application to Agricultural Practices.' A. J. Pieters and Roland
McKee.

In dealing with the question of organic matter in humid soils, Lyon first presented a critical
survey of the literature dealing with the losses of nitrogen in soils and concluded that:

1.​ The loss of gaseous nitrogen may, under some conditions, cause a greater removal of
nitrogen from a soil than occurs through absorption by crop plants.
2.​ The conditions which favour a large loss of this kind are: (a) tillage or stirring the soil in
any way, (b) absence of plant growth, (c) high nitrogen content of a soil, (d) application
of large quantities of nitrogenous manures, and (e) possibly the application of lime to
some soils.
3.​ The loss of gaseous nitrogen does not take into account the amount fixed by soil
organisms and therefore the calculated losses are less than actually occurred.

These losses of gaseous nitrogen from the soil may arise in five possible ways:

1.​ There may be an escape of part of the ammonia during the process of ammonification.
2.​ There may be a reduction of nitrates to form nitrogen as a result of alternating oxidation
and reduction.
3.​ There may be a loss of gaseous nitrogen in the oxidation of ammonia to nitrous acid since
nitrogen is possibly an intermediate product in this process.
4.​ A loss of nitrogen may result from the interaction of nitrous acid with the NH2 group of
the amino-acids.
5.​ A loss of gaseous nitrogen may occur as a result of the decomposition of ammonium
nitrite in the process of nitrification.

In connexion with these losses of nitrogen it was pointed out in the discussion that the following
two facts must be considered: (1) The ratio of carbon to nitrogen in the soils of the humid regions
tends to maintain itself in the region of 10:1. If the organic residues left in the soil or applied to it
afterwards have a higher carbon-nitrogen ratio than 10:1, an adjustment is soon effected, the
extra carbon disappearing into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. If the carbon-nitrogen ratio is
less than 10:1, there is likely to be a loss of nitrogen before the ratio is adjusted. (2) The nitrogen
content of any given soil tends to come to an equilibrium at a point which depends upon the
nature of the soil, the effective climate and the cropping system. When therefore the nitrogen
supply is increased in any way, the excess is soon dissipated when the soil comes under
cultivation.​
​
The information placed before the meeting by Russel (Nebraska) on the role of organic matter
under dry-farming conditions was most instructive, and throws a flood of light on the
consequences which are certain to follow the continuous cropping of virgin land without manure.
A rapid and continuous fall in the total organic matter content, accompanied by loss of nitrogen,
occurs together with a corresponding falling off in cropping power. Side by side, the
water-holding capacity of these soils decreases, while the structure and tilth exhibit marked
degeneration. All this has naturally led to attempts being made to restore the original content of
organic matter. The results obtained, however, have been most disappointing, for the reason that
most of these efforts have been directed towards the direct incorporation of green-manures and
raw organic matter like straw into the soil under conditions of low rainfall. In many cases more
harm than good has resulted. Russel concludes that the problem of the restoration of organic
matter under dry-land conditions is extremely complicated and difficult and leans to the view
that the solution of the problem might after all be found in the direction of nitrogenous fertilizers.
Experience at Indore, however, suggests that all these difficulties could at once be avoided if the
available supplies of green-manure, straw and other raw organic matter could first be composted
outside the field before being applied to the land. The American farmers are obviously trying to
overwork the soil and Mother Earth naturally objects.​
​
The application of organic matter to the soil is followed by a number of important indirect
results. These were dealt with by Greaves in a most interesting communication, in which the
results obtained over a number of years on two different types of Utah soils were discussed. The
first (Nephi) was typical dry-farm soil, the second was under irrigation (Greenville). In both the
results were similar. The application of organic matter increased the ammonifying, nitrifying and
nitrogen fixing processes of the soil. The gains in nitrogen, due to non-symbiotic nitrogen fixers,
occurring under greenhouse conditions, varied from 0 to 304 lb. per acre foot of soil. The
greatest gains occurred when legumes were used in the manure. The gain occurring in the soil
under field conditions, and attributed to non-symbiotic nitrogen fixation, was 44 lb. per acre
annually. Approximately 3,000 lb. of applied organic material were decomposed every year.​
​
The last paper of the symposium dealt with the practice of green-manuring throughout the United
States, with the various crops which are turned under, and with the great need for further exact
experimentation on this question. Pieters and McKee state: 'In reviewing the experimental work
that has been done with green-manures in the United States and the practices that are now
followed it is evident that much work remains to be done before many questions can be settled or
answered. Some of these fall clearly in the field of chemistry, others in physiology, and still
others in bacteriology or other specialized fields of biology. Some, however, are strictly
agronomic problems or so directly involved with crop production that their solution can perhaps
best be undertaken by the agronomist or carried on with his active co-operation. It takes but a
hasty survey to indicate the wide scope this work must cover in order to answer the specific
questions for the many soil types, various climatic conditions, and for each of the large number
of agronomic and horticultural crops involved.' In no case is there any reference in this paper to
the growing of green-manures for the express purpose of providing material for composting,
possibly because the need for this material has not yet been fully realized and because of the
labour involved. Green-manuring in the United States, as in India and other parts of the world, is
still in the empirical stage. Green crops are grown merely to provide a supply of organic matter
for turning into the soil. What happens afterwards is a matter of chance. If the results are
favourable, so much the better; if anything untoward occurs, one must hope for better things next
time. That such an uncertain practice persists at all in the United States and that it appears to be
spreading can only be explained by the great need of these depleted soils for fresh supplies of
organic matter.

Bibliography

Liebig, J. -- Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology, 1840.​

​
Phillips, M., Wette, H. D., and Smith, N. R. -- The Decomposition of Lignified Materials by Soil
Microorganisms,' Soil Science, 30, 1930, p. 383.​
​
Russell, E. J. -- Soil Conditions and Plant Growth, London, 1927.​
​
Russell, E. J. and Richards, E. H. -- 'The Changes taking place during the Storage of Farmyard
Manure,' Journ. of Agric. Science, 8, 1917, p. 495.​
​
'Symposium on Soil Organic Matter and Green-Manuring,' Journ. of the American Society of
Agronomy, 21, 1929, p. 943​
​
Waksman, S. A. -- 'The Origin and Nature of the Soil Organic Matter or Soil "Humus": 1 --
Introductory and Historical,' Soil Science, 22, 1926, p. 123.

Chapter 3

The Sources of Organic Matter

A number of sources of soil organic matter exist, namely: (1) the roots of crops left behind at
harvest, including the weeds turned under in the course of cultivation; (2) the algae met with in
large quantities in rice fields, on the surface of the soils of tropical countries during the rainy
season and to some extent in all soils; (3) green-manure; (4) farmyard manure; (5) artificial
farmyard manure. In addition to these supplies, certain by-products of industries, such as
oil-cakes and wool-waste, are also employed as sources of organic matter. These, however, are
small in total amount and need not be considered. Except in China and Japan and to a limited
extent in India, little or no use is made of night soil in crop production.

The Root-Systems of Crops

It is not always realized that about half of every crop -- the root-system -- remains in the ground
at harvest time and thus provides automatically a continuous return of organic matter to the soil.
The weeds and their roots turned in during the ordinary course of cultivation add to this supply.
When these residues, supplemented by the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere, are
accompanied by skilful soil management, crop production can be maintained at a moderate level
without the addition of any manure whatsoever. A good example of such a system of farming
without manure is to be found on the alluvial soils of the United Provinces, where the field
records of ten centuries prove that the land produces fair crops year after year without any falling
off in fertility. A perfect balance has been reached between the manurial requirements of the
crops harvested and the natural processes which recuperate fertility. A similar, although not so
striking a result, is afforded by the permanent wheat plot at Rothamsted, where this crop has
been grown every year on the same land without manure since 1844. This plot, which has been
without manure of any kind since 1839, showed a slow decline in production for the first
eighteen years after which the yield has been practically constant. Systems of soil management
such as these provide, as it were, the base line for the would-be improver. Nothing exists in the
world's agriculture below this level. At the worst, therefore, the organic matter of a soil,
constantly cropped without manure, does not disappear altogether. The wheel of life slows down.
It does not stop.

Soil Algae

One source of readily decomposable organic matter, which is available in India just at the
moment when the cold season crops need it, is to be found in the shape of a thick algal film on
the surface of cultivated soils during the second half of the rains. This film has also been
observed in Africa, Ceylon and Java, and is probably universal during the rainy season in all
parts of the tropics. As is well known, there are two periods in India when the crop is in greatest
need of combined nitrogen: (1) at the break of the monsoon in June and July, and (2) when the
cold season crops are sown in October after the rains. These latter are planted at a time when the
available nitrogen in the surface soil is likely to be in great defect. The land has been exposed to
heavy rain for long periods; the surface soil is often waterlogged. Nitrates under such conditions
are easily lost by leaching and also by de-nitrification. The conditions are therefore altogether
unfavourable for any approach towards an ample supply of nitrate when sowing time comes
round in early October. How do the cold weather crops obtain a sufficient supply of this essential
food material? It is more than probable that the deficiency is made up for, in part at least, by the
rapid decay of the algal film (which also appears to be one of the factors in nitrogen fixation)
during the last cultivations preceding the sowing of the cold weather crop in October. It is
possible that some changes may have to be made in soil management with a view to stimulating
the growth of this algal film. One of the beneficial effects of growing a green-manure crop like
sann hemp for composting, during the early rains, may prove to be due to the favourable
environment provided for the rapid establishment of the algal film. On monsoon fallow land it
will probably be found best to suspend surface cultivation during the second half of the rains
when the film is most active. There is already among the cultivators of India a tendency to stop
stirring the surface, from the middle to the end of the rains, even when this involves the growth
of weeds. This coincides with the period when the algal film is most noticeable. The indigenous
practices may therefore prove to be based on sound scientific principles. Here are ready to hand
several interesting subjects which urgently call for study under actual tropical conditions. When
this is undertaken, the investigation should include: (1) the conditions most favourable for the
establishment of the algal film; (2) the part played by algae and associated bacteria in nitrogen
fixation; (3) the role of algae in banking easily destroyed combined nitrogen during the rains;
and (4) the supply of easily decomposable and easily nitrifiable organic matter for the use of the
cold weather crops. In the rice fields of the tropics, the algal carpet is even more evident than on
ordinary cultivated soils. The total weight of organic matter added every year to each acre of rice
land in the shape of algal remains must be considerable and must serve as a useful addition to the
store of organic matter. Apart from the fixation of nitrogen from the air, it may help to explain
why such heavy crops of paddy can be obtained in India, year after year on the same land,
without manure.

Green-Manures

Since the investigations of Schulz-Lupitz first showed how open sandy soils in Germany can be
rapidly improved in texture by the incorporation of green-manures, the future possibilities of this
method of enriching the land became apparent to the investigators of the Occident. After the role
of the nodules (found on the roots of leguminous plants) in the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen
was proved, the problems of green-manuring have naturally centred round the utilization of the
leguminous crop in adding to the store of organic matter and combined nitrogen in the soil. At
the end of the last century it seemed so easy, by merely turning in a leguminous crop, to settle at
one stroke and in a very economical fashion the great problem of maintaining soil fertility. At the
expenditure of a very little trouble, the soil might be made to manure itself. A supply of
combined nitrogen, as well as a fair quantity of organic matter, might be provided without any
serious interference with ordinary cropping. These expectations have led to innumerable
green-manuring experiments all over the world with practically every species of leguminous
crop. The results however have left much to be desired. In a few cases, particularly on open soils
and where the rainfall, after the ploughing in of the green crop, is well distributed, the results
have been satisfactory. On rice lands, where abundance of water ensures the maintenance of
swamp conditions, somewhat similar results have been obtained. In the vast majority of cases,
however. green-manuring has been disappointing. As a general method of soil improvement, the
game is hardly worth the candle. On the monsoon fed areas of India the rainfall is often so
uncertain, after the green crop is ploughed in, that for long periods decay is arrested. Sowing
time arrives at a stage when the soil contains a mass of half-rotted material, with insufficient
nitrogen and moisture for the growth of a crop. Failure results. The crops raised after
green-manure are worse than those obtained on similar land left fallow. For this reason
green-manuring has not been taken up by the people in India, in spite of the experiments and
propaganda of the Agricultural Department.​
​
It soon became evident, during the early years of the present century in India, that no matter what
the rainfall and the soil conditions may be, a definite time factor is in operation in
green-manuring. A period of not less than eight weeks must elapse, between the ploughing in of
the green crop and the planting of the next, if satisfactory results are to be obtained. This was
well brought out in the green-manuring experiments on tobacco, carried out at Pusa between
1912 and 1915. Some years later, the explanation of this factor, as well as the general conditions
necessary for the decay of a green-manure crop were furnished by the work done at the New
Jersey experiment station by Waksman and his co-workers. The decay and incorporation of
green-manure in the soil has been shown to be a very complex process, depending on: (1) the
chemical composition of the plants which make up the green-manure, which in turn largely
depends on the age of the crop when ploughed in; (2) the nature of the decomposition of the
various groups of organic complexes in the plant by the different types of soil organisms, which
in turn is influenced by such factors as moisture, aeration, and the supply of available nitrogen
and phosphates needed by these organisms, and (3) the metabolism of the microorganisms taking
part in the decay of the green crop.​
​
The process of incorporation takes place on the following lines. When the green-manure crop is
ploughed in, the first stages of decay are brought about by fungi, which require for their activities
ample supplies of air, moisture and combined nitrogen, as well as the soluble and easily
decomposable carbohydrates supplied by the green crop. If the supply of nitrogen provided by
the green-manure is insufficient, the stores of soluble nitrates in the soil solution are utilized by
the fungi. Decay is rapid provided all these essential factors are simultaneously arranged for. The
result is that the whole energies of the soil at this period are given up to the needs of the fungi of
decay, which synthesize large quantities of protoplasm from the materials supplied by the green
crop and the soil solution. During this phase, most of the nitrogen present is built up into
mycelial tissue, and is therefore not immediately available for the growth of crops. The next
stage is the decay of the remainder of the green-manure, including the mycelial tissue itself, by
various groups of bacteria, followed by the incorporation of the whole mass into the soil organic
matter. This must first be nitrified before the soil solution and the crop can obtain any benefit
from this form of manuring. Clearly all this takes time, and needs abundance of oxygen as well
as a continuous supply of soil moisture. If any of the limiting factors -- nitrogen supply, air or
moisture -- are in defect, it is obvious that the final stage of nitrifiable organic matter will not be
quickly reached. The soil will not only contain a mass of undigested material, but will be poor in
available nitrogen and perhaps low in moisture as well. Seeds sown in such a soil can only result
in a poor crop. The investigations of the New Jersey experiment station explain the importance
of the time-factor in green-manuring, and incidentally show that the ordinary green-manuring
experiments in India cannot possibly succeed. The sooner they are discontinued the better.
Nothing is to be gained by attempting the hopeless task of manufacturing soil organic matter
under conditions which cannot be controlled.​
​
The question at once arises as to whether the green-manuring process can be regulated in such a
manner that the results can be relied upon? A number of attempts have been made in this
direction in India, of which that carried out by Clarke at Shahjahanpur is the most promising.
Green crops of sann hemp (Crotalaria juncea L.) have been successfully utilized for the growth
of sugar-cane. The secret of the Shahjahanpur process is to provide ample moisture, by means of
irrigation, for the first stages of the decay of the green-manure. The rainfall, after the hemp crop
is ploughed in, is carefully watched. If it is less than five inches during the first fortnight of
September, the fields are irrigated. This enables the first phase of the decay of the green crop by
the soil fungi to be completed. Practically all the nitrogen is then in the form of easily
decomposable mycelial tissue. During the autumn, nitrification is prevented by drying out the
surface soil. The nitrogen is, as it were, kept in the bank till the sugar-cane is planted under
irrigation in March. Nitrification then sets in and the available supplies of combined nitrogen are
made use of by the sugar-cane. In this way crops of over thirty tons of cane to the acre have been
grown without the addition of any manure beyond the hemp, grown on the same land the
previous rains and treated in the manner indicated above. These results do not appear to have
been obtained with any other crop than sugar-cane planted in March. It would be interesting to
have figures for wheat, sown in October, i.e. about six weeks after the hemp was ploughed under.
It is probable that even with irrigation, this interval is insufficient for the proper incorporation of
the green crop into the body of the soil organic matter and its subsequent nitrification. In this
case, the Shahjahanpur method, valuable and interesting as it is, can only have a limited
application.​
​
Is it possible to devise a method of green-manuring, by means of the leguminous crop, which
avoids all risks, is certain, and also makes the fullest use of this system? There are two possible
ways in which the growing of a leguminous green-manure crop may benefit the soil. These are:
(1) the well-known advantages of such crops in the rotation in increasing the nitrogen supply and
in stimulating the micro-organisms in the soil, and (2) the effects of incorporating the green crop
into the store of soil organic matter. Lohnis, however, showed, in many green-manuring
experiments with leguminous crops, that the same results were obtained when the crop was
removed as when it was ploughed under -- a conclusion which is in full accord with Waksman's
work. It follows from this that the double advantage of a leguminous green-manure crop can only
be achieved provided full use of the crop itself can be found outside the field, either as fodder for
animals, for making silage or as material for the manufacture of compost. This latter method has
been successfully worked out at Indore, and will be described in the next chapter. The real place
of the leguminous crop in green-manuring seems to be in providing material for the manufacture
of organic matter in a compost factory, specially designed for the purpose.​
​
The exact period in the life history of the green crop, when it should be reaped for composting, is
an important matter. If the crop is cut before the grand period of growth is completed, the
maximum amount of vegetable waste will not be obtained. On the other hand, an early harvest
will yield a product rich in nitrogen and suitable for rapid decay (Appendix C). Late harvesting is
also attended with disadvantages. If reaped after flowering begins, the green crop will have used
up a good deal of the rich nodule tissue which will then be temporarily removed from the soil
and will not benefit the next crop. Further, the older the crop, the more unfavourable the
carbon-nitrogen ratio becomes. The best stage for removal will be just before flowering begins.
At this point, most of the nitrates in the soil solution have been absorbed by the crop and have
been banked, either in the form of an easily decomposable root-system or as compost material,
the chemical composition of which is exactly what is needed to improve the carbon-nitrogen
ratio of the other vegetable wastes of the farm. When the green crop is reaped at this stage the
following advantages are obtained: (1) The nitrates of the soil solution are safely banked. (2) The
next crop derives the maximum benefit from an easily decomposable and uniformly distributed
root-system, rich in combined nitrogen, the decay and incorporation of which is well within the
powers of the soil. (3) The store of vegetable waste for composting is increased in amount and
improved in chemical composition by the uniform distribution of the combined nitrogen
throughout the tissues of the green crop.

Farmyard Manure

From the beginning of agriculture, the utilization of farm wastes, rotted by means of the urine
and dung of animals, has been the principal means of replenishing soil losses. Even at the present
day, in spite of the establishment of numerous experiment stations and the employment of an
army of investigators, the methods in vogue in the preparation and storage of this product leave
much to be desired. Even under the covered-yard system, when the dung and litter are left under
the animals until a layer several feet thick is produced, and the product is protected from the
weather, as much as fifteen per cent of the valuable nitrogen is lost. When the dung is carted out
into a heap to ripen, as is the usual practice, the losses of nitrogen are even greater. Russell and
Richards, who some years ago carried out an elaborate investigation on the storage of farmyard
manure at Rothamsted, concluded that: (1) the system of leaving the manure under the beasts till
it is required for the fields, as in the box or covered-yard system, is the best whenever this is
practicable; (2) the ideal method of storage is under anaerobic conditions at a temperature of 26
degrees C.; (3) the manure heap, however well made and protected, involves losses of nitrogen;
and (4) the best hope of improvement lies in storing the manure in watertight tanks or pits, so
made that they can be completely closed and thereby allow the attainment of perfect anaerobic
conditions. These investigations, published in 1917, clearly indicate that one of the reasons for
the present imperfect management of farmyard manure lies in the fact that the conditions are
sometimes aerobic, at others anaerobic, whereas they should be one or the other throughout. In
other words, there is no proper management of the air supply. Moisture is not usually in defect,
except in hot countries like India where there is abundant air but often little moisture. Taking
Great Britain and India as extreme cases of the management of farmyard manure, we find one or
other of the following conditions in operation. In Great Britain, the irregular air supply of the
manure heap leads to serious losses of nitrogen.​
​
The final product is not a fine powder but a partially rotted material, which cannot be
incorporated into the pore-spaces of the soil until further decay has taken place. The soil
therefore has to do a good deal of work before the farmyard manure, applied on the surface in
lumps, can be uniformly distributed through and incorporated into the soil mass. In India, the
storage of farmyard manure leads to the loss of so much moisture, that often insufficient decay
takes place before it finds its way into the soil. Losses of nitrogen may be prevented in this way
but the work thrown upon the soil is even greater than in temperate regions. Only in China and
Japan is any real attempt made to prepare the manure for the use of the crop, and to relieve the
soil from unnecessary work. What is needed throughout the world is a continuous system of
preparing farmyard manure in which (1) all losses of nitrogen are avoided, and, (2) the various
steps from the raw material to the finished product follow a definite plan, based on the orderly
breaking down of the materials, and the preparation of a finished product, ready for immediate
nitrification, which can easily be incorporated into the soil. At the same time, an attempt should
be made to gain as much nitrogen as possible by fixation from the atmosphere. Only when all
this is done will the preparation of farmyard manure be based on correct scientific principles.

Artificial Farmyard Manure

During the last ten years, an additional source of soil organic matter has been utilized, namely,
artificial or synthetic farmyard manure. In 1921, the results of experiments, carried out by
Hutchinson and Richards at Rothamsted on the conversion of straw into manure without the
intervention of live stock, were published. In this pioneering work, which constitutes an
important milestone in the development of crop production, a method was devised by which
straw could be converted into a substance having many of the properties of stable manure. In the
preliminary experiments, the most promising results were obtained when the straw was subjected
to the action of a culture of an aerobic cellulose decomposing organism (Spirochoeta cytophaga),
whose activities were found to depend on the mineral substances present in the culture fluid. The
essential factors in the production of well-rotted farmyard manure from straw were found to be:
air supply; a suitable temperature, and a small amount of soluble combined nitrogen. The
fermentation was aerobic; the breakdown of the straw was most rapid in a neutral or slightly
alkaline medium in the presence of sufficient available nitrogen. Urine, urea, ammonium
carbonate and peptone (within certain concentrations) were all useful forms of combined
nitrogen. Sulphate of ammonia by itself was not suitable, as the medium soon became markedly
acid. The concentration of the combined nitrogen added was found to be important. When this
was in excess, nitrogen was lost from the mass before decay could proceed; when it was in
defect, a marked tendency to fix nitrogen was observed. The publication of this paper soon led to
a number of further investigations, and to numberless attempts all over the world to prepare
artificial farmyard manure from every kind of vegetable waste. The principles underlying the
conversion are now well understood, and have recently been summed up by Waksman and his
co-workers in the Journal of the American Society of Agronomy (21, 1929, p. 533) in a paper
which should be carefully studied by all interested in this important subject. The principles
underlying the conversion are so well put by these investigators that they are best given in the
authors' own words:

'The problems involved in the study of the principles underlying the decomposition of mature
straw and other plant residues in composts, leading to the formation of so-called artificial
manure, involve a knowledge of: (a) the composition of the plant material; (b) the mechanism of
the decomposition processes which are brought about by the micro-organisms; and (c) a
knowledge of the metabolism of these organisms.​
'Straw and other farm residues, which are commonly used for the purpose of composting, consist
predominantly (60 per cent or more) of celluloses and hemi-celluloses, which undergo rapid
decomposition in the presence of aufficient nitrogen and other minerals, of lignins (15 to 20 per
cent) which are more resistant to decomposition and which gradually accumulate, of
water-soluble substances (5 to 12 per cent) which decompose very rapidly, of proteins which are
usually present in very small amounts (2.2 to 30 per cent) but which gradually increase in
concentration with the advance of decomposition, and of the mineral portion or ash.​
'The processes of decomposition involved in the composting consist largely in the disappearance
of the celluloses and hemi-celluloses, which make up more than 80 per cent of the organic matter
which is undergoing decomposition in the process of formation of artificial manures. These
poly-saccharides cannot be used as direct sources of energy by nitrogen-fixing bacteria and their
decomposition depends entirely upon the action of various fungi and aerobic bacteria. In the
process of decomposition of the celluloses and hemi-celluloses, the micro-organisms bring about
the synthesis of microbial cell substance. This may be quite considerable, frequently equivalent
to a fifth or even more of the actual organic matter decomposed. To synthesize these large
quantities of organic matter, the micro-organisms require large quantities of available nitrogen
and phosphorus and a favourable reaction. The nitrogen and phosphorus are used for the building
up of the proteins and nucleins in the microbial cells. Since there is a direct relation between the
celluloses decomposed and the organic matter synthesized, it should be expected also that there
would be a direct relation between the cellulose decomposed and the amount of nitrogen
required. As a matter of fact, for every forty or fifty parts of cellulose and hemi-cellulose
decomposed, one unit of available nitrogen has to be added to the compost.​
'As the plant residues used in the preparation of "artificial manure" are poor in nitrogen, available
inorganic nitrogen must be introduced for the purpose of bringing about active decomposition.
This explains the increase in the protein content of the compost accompanying the gradual
decrease of the celluloses and hemi-celluloses.​
'In general, artificial composts can be prepared from plant residues of any chemical composition
so long as the nature of these residues and of the processes involved in their decomposition are
known. By regulating the temperature and moisture content and by introducing the required
amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium carbonate, the speed of decomposition
and the nature of the product formed can be controlled.'

It is not possible in the space available to summarize all the various experiments which have
been made in Great Britain, the United States, India and other parts of the world on the actual
conversion of vegetable residues into artificial farmyard manure. It will be sufficient to refer to
typical examples of what has been done. The Rothamsted investigations have been continued and
have led to a patented process, known as Adco, by which the requisite nitrogenous and
phosphatic food for the micro-organisms, as well as a base for the neutralization of acidity, are
added to the vegetable wastes in the form of powders. Full details and numerous illustrations are
to be found in the various Adco pamphlets. The object of patenting the process is not profit for
the inventors but the raising of funds for further research. All users of Adco therefore are not
only provided with a useful mixture but also make a small contribution to the cost of
fundamental research work. In India, the various experiments on the production of artificial
farmyard manure from a large number of materials, such as prickly pear, fallen leaves, town
refuse, mahua (Bassia latifolia L.) flowers, weeds, banana waste, leguminous plants such as sann
hemp, green pea stalks and various weeds have recently been summed up by Fowler, whose
paper (see Bibliography below) should be consulted for details. The materials employed for
adding the necessary nitrogen and other materials for the micro-organisms were night-soil,
cow-dung, cattle urine, activated sludge or chemicals like sulphate of ammonia and calcium
cyanamide. A large number of experiments are described from which it is clear that very useful
manures, containing from 1 to 4 per cent of nitrogen, were obtained, which in field trials with
rice and maize gave results equal to or better than any other nitrogenous manure in common use.
Attempts were made in the course of this work to determine the amount of nitrogen fixation from
the air which occurs during the conversion of the vegetable waste. It was found, when proper
care was taken to supply the necessary organisms, that a considerable amount of free nitrogen
was actually absorbed. These results, which agree with others on the same point, are of
considerable interest. If in the conversion of vegetable wastes into artificial farmyard manure
additional nitrogen can be gained, obviously the ideal conditions have been discovered. Once
such principles have been correctly ascertained and put into practice, it might then be possible to
deal not only with the manure heap itself but also with green-manuring, so that actual fixation
can be substituted for the losses of nitrogen which now occur.​
​
As is to be expected in such a matter as this, the preparation of artificial farmyard manure has
been in actual operation centuries before Hutchinson and Richards began their work at
Rothamsted. King, in Farmers of Forty Centuries, describes the conversion by the Chinese
peasants of clover (Astragalus sinicus) into manure by mixing the green crop with rich canal
mud To all intents and purposes, this system closely resembles the Adco process. Once more the
empirical methods, discovered during centuries of practice, have preceded the results obtained by
the application of pure science. Nevertheless, although in a sense the Rothamsted workers have
been anticipated, it is quite safe to say that but for their work, the utilization of green clover in
China, although described in the literature of the subject, would have passed unheeded. It was the
novelty of the Rothamsted investigations which has proved so useful and so stimulating.​

A critical examination of the literature on the principles underlying the conversion into humus of the chief
groups of crude organic matter -- green-manure, farmyard manure and vegetable wastes -- reveals one
fundamental weakness, namely, the fragmentation, into a number of loosely related sections, of what is
essentially one subject. Farmyard manure, green-manure and the preparation of synthetic farmyard
manure are always dealt with as if they were separate things and not parts of one great project. Even
Waksman (whose contributions to the principles underlying the conversion of vegetable wastes into
humus cannot fail to compel the admiration of all investigators), when the time came to write up his work
for the agronomists of the United States, contributed three separate papers to the Journal of the American
Society of Agronomy -- one on farmyard manure, one on green-manure and the third on artificial farmyard
manure -- instead of synthesizing all these related subjects into one single contribution. When we come to
the practical side of the question, a similar fragmentation is apparent. Green-manuring is always a
separate process. The manure heap and its utilization from the time of the Romans to the present day,
forms a special section of the work of the farm. The manufacture of artificial farmyard manure is again
split off as an isolated operation. This particularism, in the most recent papers, is reflected in the separate
conversion of each kind of vegetable waste, although it follows, from considerations of chemical
composition, that a mixture of residues is much more likely to possess a suitable carbon-nitrogen ratio
than any single material. As will be evident from a study of Waksman's three papers referred to above, the
principles underlying the decay of farmyard manure, of green-manure and the preparation of artificial
farmyard manure are essentially the same, namely, the synthesis of humus, by means of fungi and
bacteria, from crude vegetable matter, various nutrients, air, water and bases. This humus increases the
supply of soil organic matter and is capable of rapid nitrification. What is needed is the welding of all the
separate fragments of the subject into a well ordered system. One process is required, not several. The
agriculturist of the future must be shown how to become a chemical manufacturer. Further, the method
finally adopted must be so elastic that it can be introduced into almost any system of agriculture. Again, it
must be simple, safe and must yield a continuous and uniform product, capable of being instantly utilized
by the crop. No waste of valuable nitrogen should occur at any stage. If possible, matters should be so
arranged that the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen takes place at all stages of the process -- in the compost
factory and afterwards in the soil. In the next chapter, a continuous process of making humus is described
which furfils the conditions just outlined. This includes, in a single process, the various fragments of the
subject, such as the care of the manure heap, green-manuring, the utilization of all vegetable wastes as
well as the urine earth from the cattle shed and the wood ashes from the labourers' quarters. By its means,
the waste products of 300 acres of land are converted every year into about 1,OOO cart-loads of valuable
humus, of uniform chemical composition and of uniform fineness. When this material is added to the soil
there is a rapid increase in fertility. The practical results obtained at Indore prove that all that is needed to
raise crop production to a much higher level throughout the world is the orderly utilization of the waste
products of agriculture itself.

Bibliography

Bristol, B. M. -- 'On the Alga-flora of some dessicated English Soils: an Important Factor in Soil
Biology,' Annals of Botany, 34, 192O, P.35.​
​
Bristol, B. M. and Page, H. J. -- 'A Critical Enquiry into the Alleged Fixation of Nitrogen by
Green Alga,' Annals of Applied Biology, 1O, 1923, p. 378.​
​
Bristol-Roach, B. M. -- 'The Present Position of our Knowledge of the Distribution and
Functions of Alga, in the Soil,' Proc. of the Inter. Congress of Soil Science, Washington, D.C.,
1928, p. 30.​
​
Carbery, M. and Finlow, R. S. -- 'Artificial Farmyard Manure,' Agric. Journ. of India, 23, 1928,
p. 80.​
​
Clarke, G., Banerjee, S. C., Naib Husain, M., and Qayum, A. -- 'Nitrate Fluctuation in the
Gangetic Alluvium and Some Aspects of the Nitrogen Problem in India,' Agric. Journ. of India,
17, 1922, p. 463.​
​
Clarke, G. -- 'Some Aspects of Soil Improvement in relation to Crop Production,' Proc. of the
Seventeenth Indian Science Congress, Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, 1930, p. 23.​
​
Dobbs, A. C-' Green-Manuring in India,' Bull. 56, Agric. Research Institute, Pusa, 1916.​
​
Fowler, G. J. -- 'Recent Experiments on the Preparation of Organic Matter,' Agric. Journ. of
India, 25, 1930, p 363.​
​
Hall, A. D. -- The Book of the Rothamsted Experiments, London, 1905.​
​
Howard, A. and Howard, G. L. C. -- 'The Improvement of Tobacco Cultivation in Bihar,' Bull.
50, Agric. Research Institute, Pusa, 1915.​
​
Howard, A. -- Crop Production in India, a Critical Survey of its Problems, Oxford University
Press, 1924.​
​
Howard, A. and Howard, G. L. C. -- The Application of Science to Crop Production, an
Experiment carried out at the Institute of Plant Industry, Indore, Oxford University Press, 1929.​
​
Hutchinson, H. B. and Richards, E. H. -- 'Artificial Farmyard Manure,' Journ. of the Min. of
Agric. (London), 28, 1921, p. 398.​
​
King, F. H. -- Farmers of Forty Centuries, or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan,
London, 1926.​
​
Lohnis, F. -- 'Nitrogen Availability of Green Manures,' Soil Science, 22, 1926, p. 253.​
​
Lohnis, F. -- 'Effect of Growing Legumes upon succeeding Crops,' Soil Science, 22, 1926, p. 355.​
​
Russell, E. J. -- Soil Conditions and Plant Growth, London, 1927.​
​
Russell, E. J. -- 'The Present Status of Soil Microbiology,' Proc. of the Inter. Congress on Soil
Science, Washington, D.C., 1928, p. 36.​
​
Russell, E. J. and Richards, E. H. -- 'The Changes taking place during the Storage of Farmyard
Manure,' Journ. of Agric. Science, 8, 1927, p. 495.​
​
Russell, E. J. and others. -- The Micro-organisms in the Soil, London, 1923.​
​
Waksman, S. A. -- 'Chemical and Microbiological Principles underlying the Decomposition of
Green-Manures in the Soil,' Journ. of the Amer. Soc. of Agronomy, 21, 1929, p. 1.​
​
Waksman, S. A., Tenney, F. G. and Diehm, R. A. -- 'Chemical and Microbiological Principles
underlying the Transformation of Organic Matter in the Preparation of Artificial Manures,'
Journ. of the Amer. Soc. of Agronomy, 21, 1929, p.533.​
​
Waksman, S. A. and Diehm, R. A. -- 'Chemical and Microbiological Principles underlying the
Transformation of Organic Matter in Stable Manure in the Soil,' Journ. of the Amer. Soc. of
Agronomy, 21, 1929, p.795

Time-Table of Operations

The complete time-table of the manufacture of compost, which takes ninety days, is given in
Table V.​

Table V
 The Complete Time-table for One Compost Pit

Day Event

1 Charging begins.

6 Charging ends.

10 Fungus growth established.

12 First watering.

16/17 First turning, compost inoculated with bacteria

from another pit thirty days old.

24 Second watering.

30/32 Second turning.

38 Third watering.

45 Fourth watering.

60 Third turning.

67 Fifth watering.

75 Sixth watering.

90 Removal to field.

Output

Fifty cart-loads of ripe compost per pair of oxen per annum can be made from the plant residues
available on any holding. The quantity can be more than doubled when all the dung and urine
earth are used, provided of course sufficient vegetable refuse can be secured. Fifty to
seventy-five tins (200 to 300 gallons) of water, according to the season, are sufficient to make
one cart-load of finished compost. No extra labour is required other than that usually employed
in the cattle-shed, namely two men and three women. These are sufficient for the work connected
with forty oxen and the preparation of 1,000 carts of compost per annum.​
​
The labour needed for the annual manufacture of 1,000 cart-loads of compost has been reduced
to a minimum by: (1) the provision of a water supply; (2) the general design of the cattle-shed
and compost factory and (3) the detailed training of the labour force to carry out the work
quickly and without unnecessary fatigue. This aspect of the manufacture of humus has been
greatly assisted by the system of managing labour adopted at the Institute (Appendix D).​
​
During the year 1930, when 840 cart-loads of compost were prepared, a careful record of the
actual time spent on compost making by the labour employed to look after the work cattle, was
made. It was found that one half of the time of this labour was spent on the care of the cattle and
one half on the making of compost. The total wages debited to actual compost making came to
Rs 441.5, i.e. to 8.5 annas, or ninepence halfpenny, per cart-load of finished material. During the
present year, 1931, the output has increased and is expected to reach 1,000 cart-loads. It is best to
spread the compost on the land directly it becomes ready, so as to facilitate the distribution of
farm work throughout the year.

Manurial Value of Indore Compost

One cart-load of Indore compost is equivalent, as regards nitrogen content, to two cart-loads of
ordinary farmyard manure. Properly made compost has another great advantage over ordinary
manure, namely its fine powdery character which enables it to be uniformly incorporated with
the soil and to be rapidly converted into food materials for the crop. Taking everything into
consideration, Indore compost has about three times the value of ordinary manure. The crops of
irrigated wheat and sugar-cane, raised on land which has been graded and afterwards manured
with compost, are shown in Plates X and XI.​
 Plate XI. (1) The effect of Compost on sugar-cane. (2) Compost made by the Indore and Adco
methods.

Table XXVI
Influence of Indore Compost on the Permeability of Black Cotton Soil

Period of Duration of No. of cc. of filtrate collected Permeability

exposure percolation ratio
Black cotton Black cotton Black cotton
soil only soil + compost soil + compost
from mixed from
residues cotton-stalks

3 weeks 2 hours 132 225 220 1:1.7:1.5

4 weeks 1.5 hours 97 164 130 1:1.7: 1.3

6 hours 195 340 280 1:1.7:1.4

The method adopted in carrying out these permeability tests is to maintain the moisture in the samples
between 23 and 30 per cent as in the case of the nitrification tests. A weighed portion (150 gm.) of the
moist samples is churned for fifteen minutes with 500 cc. of distilled water in a Bouyonco's soil cup by
means of the electric mixer. The suspension is then quickly poured on a fluted agar filter, and the
volume of the filtrates obtained during equal periods measured.

The loss of permeability which takes place in these soils after the early rains, is perhaps the greatest
obstacle to high yields of cotton. A manure, therefore, which will help to remove this factor, is exactly
what the cultivator needs. This property will prove of the greatest value in keeping alkali in check, when
the process is applied to the close alluvial soils of the Punjab and Sind.

It will be clear from the results set out in this chapter that a solution of the problem of utilizing the waste
products of agriculture itself has been solved, by methods which are well within the means of any
industrious cultivator. All the recent work on the problems of manuring points clearly to the supreme
importance of organic matter of the right type. This must possess a carbon-nitrogen ratio in the
neighbourhood of 10:1, and must be synthesized from crop residues by means of fungi and bacteria,
working under aerobic conditions. Clearly the thing to do is to manufacture such a product in a compost
factory under strict control, and then to add the organic matter to the soil. This has been accomplished at
Indore.
(After this chapter was written, a paper by Waksman and Gerretsen appeared in the issue of Ecology of
January 1931, which confirms the results set out above in a very remarkable way, The New Jersey
experiments deal with the influence of temperature and moisture on the decomposition of plant residues
as a whole. The higher the temperature, the more rapid is the decomposition of the material including the
lignins. At the highest temperature, 37 degrees C., the carbon-nitrogen ratio was reduced from about 1OO
to 11.3:1, to almost the ratio of the organic matter in normal soil. When decomposition was most
favourable and most rapid, the final carbon-nitrogen ratio was practically the same as that in soil humus.
This is exactly what happens in the Indore process. The American results, which were obtained under
laboratory conditions, fully confirm our factory experience of the last four years in India and can be
applied, practically as they stand, to the Indore process.)

Bibliography

Brayne, F. L. -- The Remaking of Village India, Oxford University Press, 1929.​

​
Dubos, R. J. -- 'Influence of Environmental Conditions on the Activities of Cellulose
Decomposing Organisms in the Soil,' Ecology, 9, 1928, p. 12.​
​
Howard, A. and Howard, G. L. C. -- The Application of Science to Crop Production, an
Experiment carried out at the Institute of Plant Industry, Indore, Oxford University Press, 1929.​
​
Hutchinson, H. B. -- 'The Influence of Plant Residues on Nitrogen Fixation and on losses of
Nitrates in the Soil,' Journ. of Agric. Science, 9, 1918, p. 92.​
​
Jensen, H. L. -- 'The Microbiology of Farmyard Manure in Soil. 1 -- Changes in the Micro-flora
and their Relation to Nitrification,' Journ. of Agric. Science, 21, 1931, p. 38.​
​
Russell, E. J. and Richards, E. H. -- 'The Changes taking Place during the Storage of Farmyard
Manure,' Journ. of Agric. Science, 8, 1917, p. 95.​
​
Viljoen, J. A., Fred, E. B. and Peterson, W. H. -- 'The Fermentation of Cellulose by Thermophilic
Bacteria,' Journ. of Agric. Science, 16, 1926, p. 1.​
​
Voelcker, J. A. -- Report on the Improvement of Indian Agriculture, London, 1893.​
​
Waksman, S. A -- 'The Influence of Micro-organisms upon the Carbon-Nitrogen Ratio in the
Soil,' Journ. of Agric. Science, 14, 1924, p. 535.​
​
Waksman, S. A. and Tenney, F. Q. -- 'Composition of Natural Organic Materials and their
Decomposition in Soil. IV -- The Nature and Rapidity of the various Organic Complexes in
different Plant Materials under Aerobic Conditions,' Soil Science, 28, 1929, p. 55.​
​
Waksman, S. A. and Diehm, R. A. -- 'Chemical and Microbiological Principles underlying the
Transformation of Organic Matter in Stable Manure in the Soil,' Journ. of the American Soc. of
Agronomy, 21, 1929, p. 795.​
​
Waksman, S. A. and Gerretsen, F. C. -- 'Influence of Temperature and Moisture upon the Nature
and Extent of Decomposition of Plant Residues by Micro-organisms,' Ecology, 12, 1931, p. 33.​
​
Whiting, A. L. and Schoonover, W. R. -- 'The Comparative Rate of Decomposition of green and
cured Clover Tops in Soil,' Soil Science, 9, 1920, p.137.

Chapter 6

Application to Other Areas

In the present chapter, the various adaptations that will be needed, and the further investigations
that must be undertaken before the Indore process can be widely adopted, will briefly be
considered.

Adaptations

As far as the tropics and sub-tropics are concerned, the process can be adopted as it stands. No
particular difficulties are likely to be encountered at any stage. After the collection, storage and
admixture of the raw materials, including dung and urine earth, the two chief factors on which
success depends are: (1) the maintenance of a high temperature in the pits or heaps; and (2)
adequate aeration throughout the manufacture. With ordinary care, temperature difficulties are
unlikely to occur, as the daily mean in these regions is always high, and the occasional cold
spells are of short duration. All that is needed is the proper orientation of the pits or heaps to
prevent overdue cooling by high winds, particularly during the interval between charging and the
first turn. The maintenance of the correct degree of aeration requires more care. The chief
difficulty likely to arise is the flooding of the pits after heavy rain or by the rise of the ground
water. The material then becomes thoroughly soaked, and adequate aeration is impossible. If this
overwatering cannot be prevented by catch drains, pits will have to be given up and the
manufacture conducted in heaps on the surface. Direct wetting through heavy falls does little or
no permanent harm (but see Chapter 5, Table XI for the temporary effects). This was clearly
established at Indore during the monsoon of 1930, when the total rainfall was forty-five inches,
most of which was received between I5 June and 15 September. This included five falls of over
two inches and two of over five inches in twenty-four hours. In spite of these heavy downpours,
the conversion proceeded evenly and without difficulty; there was little or no loss of soluble
nitrogen by leaching; the amount of moisture absorbed from the rainfall did not interfere with the
oxygen supply. For these reasons it is not necessary in warm countries to carry on the
manufacture under cover. The erection and maintenance of sheds therefore need not be
considered.​
​
In the damper areas of the tropics like parts of Africa and the West Indies, which do not possess a
cattle force at all comparable with that of India, a difficulty in maintaining the correct
carbon-nitrogen ratio of the mixture may occur. There may be insufficient dung and urine earth
for converting the large quantities of vegetable wastes which are available. The shortage can be
made up by the use of nitrate of soda or by the Adco powders. If such artificials are employed, it
will be a great advantage to make use of soil as the principal base for keeping the general
reaction uniform and within the optimum range. Soil is the best base for neutralizing acidity and
for absorbing ammonia and is far more effective than lime or wood ashes. This material
possesses two other important advantages in the making of compost. In the first place, the soil
colloids are very retentive of moisture and so help to keep the water content of the mass steady.
In the second place, the colloids cover the vegetable matter with a thin adherent film which can
retain in situ all the materials -- combined nitrogen and minerals, soluble carbohydrates, water
and oxygen essential for the rapid development of the micro-organisms. The result is that there is
no delay in the breaking down of the vegetable wastes and in the synthesis of microbial tissue.
When earth is omitted from the mixture, two difficulties at once arise. The supply of moisture for
the microorganisms is intermittent; the general reaction becomes inconsistant. Delays ensue. For
these reasons, the Adco process could easily be improved by the judicious use of earth. If lime
were omitted from the Adco mixture, the freight on this item could be saved and the usefulness
of the rest of the powder increased.​
​
In those areas of the temperate regions where winter occurs, one important modification of the
process may be needed. As will be evident from a study of the results set out in Chapter V, one of
the difficulties against which provision has to be made is the lowering of the temperature of the
fermenting mass by cold and wind. For the micro-organisms to complete the conversion in
ninety days, the heaps must be kept at a high temperature throughout. No difficulties are likely to
arise during the summer. Trouble however is likely during the colder months -- November to
April. During this period the fermentation may have to be carried out in sheds or in compost
houses on the Japanese principle. Many existing farm buildings could be adapted for the
purpose; the ideal structure however would have to be designed -- a task which will be lightened
after a careful study of the methods in use in those areas of Japan where compost houses are the
rule.​
​
The difficulty of adopting the system in countries like Canada, the United States and Great
Britain, where labour is dear and scarce, will be solved by the mechanization of the process. The
first step would be for one or two of the experiment stations to transform all their vegetable
wastes into compost by hand labour regardless of expense, and then to determine the value of the
product in maintaining crop production at a high level. The full possibilities of humus will only
appear when the dressings of compost are supplemented by the addition of suitable artificials.
The combination of the two, applied at the right moment and in proper proportions, will open the
door to the intensive crop production of the future. Humus and artificials will supplement one
another. Further, the artificials must not be confined to those which merely supply nitrogen,
phosphates and potash. Substances like lime and sulphur, which flocculate the soil colloids and
so improve the filth, must be included.​
​
In other words, the manuring of the future wild have to be both direct and indirect.

Further Investigations

In the tropics and sub-tropics, an important aspect of the process is its application to the future
sanitation of the village. The fact that forty oxen are kept at the Institute of Plant Industry,
Indore, and that compost is manufactured throughout the year, without the slightest smell and
without the breeding of flies, indicates clearly the line of advance in dealing with village
sanitation. All that appears to be needed is to adapt the Indore process (which employs cow-dung
and urine earth) to the use of night soil, and to utilize the present sanitary services in showing the
people how to transform the village wastes (including all forms of litter of vegetable origin) into
compost. No difficulties are likely to be experienced in the actual conversion of the waste
products of the rural population into humus. The process will be more rapid than when cow-dung
is used: a factor which is all to the good. Besides the valuable compost that will be obtained, a
number of other advantages will follow. Rural hygiene will enter on a new phase. The fly
nuisance will disappear. Practically all the infection, which is now carried by these insects from
filth to the food and water supply of the population, will be automatically destroyed by the
combination of high temperature, high humidity and copious aeration of the compost heaps. In
the tropics parasites like hookworm will tend to decrease in numbers. A rapid improvement in
the general health and the amenities of the village will ensue. What is needed to bring about
these results is the working out of a simple process on the lines of the one described in this book.
It will not prove a difficult. It will be easy to-design a series of screened pits and screened areas
in the neighbourhood of an Indian village, and to teach the sweepers how to carry on the
manufacture of compost without smell and without the breeding of flies. The conditions which
render these two nuisances impossible will at the same time destroy practically all the harmful
parasites and germs which now infect the population. Provided the work is carried out by the
village scavengers, no caste difficulties are likely to arise. The process can easily be welded into
the existing village system. A beginning has been made in the direction indicated by Mr. F. L.
Brayne, I.C.S., Deputy Commissioner of Jhelum (formerly Deputy Commissioner of Gurgaon).
Mr. Brayne has designed a latrine pit, which without much difficulty could be perfected for use
throughout the tropics and sub-tropics. The method will have to be adapted both to dry weather
and to monsoon conditions, and will have to be worked for a year or two under strict
microbiological and chemical control before being brought to the notice of the people. Work on
these lines has already been started in the model village belonging to the Institute of Plant
Industry at Indore. If, as seems certain, a practicable method can be devised, steps will at once be
taken to get it taken up in the villages of the Central India and Rajputana States. Its spread to the
rest of India, and all over the tropics and subtropics, will be a matter of a very few years.​
​
The moment a suitable method of dealing with the sanitation of the village has been designed
and the influence of the process on the general health of the people and on the fertility of the
fields becomes manifest, the results can be carried further. The public health of the military
cantonments and of the smaller towns can then be considered as one subject. In place of the
present expensive division of those aspects of the general problem of sanitation, which deal with
solid wastes, into a number of imperfectly related items, such as -- the disposal of night soil, the
use of disinfectants, the collection and destruction by burning of vegetable wastes including
fallen leaves, the prevention of the fly nuisance, the purlfication and safeguarding of the water
supply and the inoculation of the population against such diseases as enteric fever and cholera --
it will be possible to transform these waste products of the population into valuable humus in a
scientific way, and so avoid most if not all the existing difficulties. Such results, as far as urban
areas are concerned, will naturally be the work of years. In the villages, however, progress
should be rapid. The first important step on the road has already been taken in the form of the
Indore process. It will not be a difficult matter to expand the opening which has been made.
Little increase in public expenditure will be called for. The funds and staff, now devoted to rural
hygiene, can at once be deflected to the manufacture of compost and to increasing the produce of
the soil.

Bibliography

Brayne, F. L. -- The Remaking of Village India, Oxford University Press, 1929.​

​
Hall, A. D. -- ' Some Secondary Actions of Manures upon the Soil,' Journ. of the Royal Agric.
Soc. of England, 70, 1909, p. 12.​
​
Howard, A. and Howard, G. L. C. -- The Application of Science to Crop Production, an
Experiment carried out at the Institute of Plant Industry, Indore, Oxford University Press,
Bombay, 19Z9.​
​
King, F. H. -- Farmers of Forty Centuries or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan,
London, 1926
Appendix A

The Manurial Problem in India

The manurial problems of India were considered in detail by the recent Royal Commission on
Agriculture in India which, after an extensive study of the subject lasting more than two years,
reported in 1928. That section of the report which deals with fertilizers is reprinted in full below.
A study of this account will bring home to the investigator and to the general reader the evils
which invariably result from the fragmentation of any large agricultural problem.​
​
(Extract from the Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India, Bombay, 1928, pp.
80-93.)

Fertilizers

80. 'Of the principal plant-food materials in which the soils of India are deficient by far the most
important (except in parts of the crystalline tracts where the deficiency of phosphates may be
more serious) is nitrogen, and the manurial problem in India is, in the main, one of nitrogen
deficiency. India, as is well known, depends almost exclusively on the recuperative effects of
natural processes in the soil to restore the combined nitrogen annually removed in the crops, for
but little of this is returned to the soil in any other way. Much of the farmyard manure available
is burnt as fuel whilst a large quantity of combined nitrogen is exported in the form of oil seeds,
food and other grains, and animal products such as hides and bones. This loss is in no way
compensated by the importation of nitrogenous fertilizers, for 1925-26 was the first year which
the imports of sulphate of ammonia into this country, which amounted only to 4,724 tons,
exceeded the exports and was also the first year in which the greater part of the production of this
fertilizer by the Tata Iron and Steel Company at Jamshedpur and in the coalfields of Bengal and
Bihar and Orissa was consumed in India. In these circumstances, it is fortunate that the
recuperative processes in the soil are more pronounced in tropical and sub-tropical than in
temperate regions. Although it has been stated in evidence before us that it has not been
established that improved and higher yielding varieties of crops, more especially of wheat and
sugar-cane, take more from the soil than the varieties they replace, and that their cultivation on
present lines will not, therefore, be followed by any loss of permanent fertility, we are of opinion
that there is justification for the view that improved crops generally require, for their fullest
development, more liberal manurial treatment than those ordinarily grown. The subject is one
which requires careful study by the agricultural departments in India and should form an
essential part of the investigations discussed in the following paragraph.
Manurial Experiments

81. An acceleration of the recuperative processes in the soil can be effected by improved
agricultural methods, by adequate soil aeration, judicious rotations and the cultivation of
green-manure crops. The loss of combined nitrogen can also be partially made up by the
application of natural and artificial manures. With certain definite exceptions, however, such as,
for instance, sugar-cane and the more valuable garden crops, it has yet to be determined for what
conditions and for what crops artificial manures can be profitably used to stimulate crop
production in India. In this connexion, we have been impressed by the importance of research
into the fundamental problems connected with losses in nitrogen and with nitrogen recuperation.
We saw something of the work in this field which was being carried on at Pusa by Dr. Harrison
and at Nagpur by Dr. Annett. Although, ever since the reorganization of the agricultural
departments in 1905, manurial experiments have engaged a large part of their time and energies
and have been carried out on every agricultural station in India, it cannot be said that the
agricultural experts are even yet in a position to give satisfactory advice to the cultivator in
regard to the use of manures. A large amount of data has been collected but it has not been
studied systematically or reduced to a form which would enable clear and definite conclusions to
be drawn. The problem requires to be studied in three aspects: in relation, in the first instance, to
the crops which are dependent solely on rainfall, in the second, to crops which are grown on
irrigated land, and lastly, to the planters' crops and intensive cultivation such as that of
sugar-cane and garden crops. It is hardly necessary to point out that the use of nitrogenous or
other artificial fertilizers is not profitable in all conditions. Where crop production is limited by a
small rainfall, the annual additions of combined nitrogen to the soil as the result of natural
processes may be sufficient to meet the needs of a crop the out-turn of which is limited by the
moisture available. It has, for example, been found in the Central Provinces that the application
of fertilizers benefits dry crops, including unirrigated cotton, only in years when the rainfall is
adequate and that, in particular, it does not benefit wheat which, in that province, is grown on
rainfall only. The planting community, which has its own specialist officers, needs no advice
from the agricultural departments in regard to the economic use of manures. We would, however,
take this opportunity of stressing the value of close touch between the community and the
departments in regard to this and other agricultural matters It is essential that the departments
should be in a position to give the ordinary cultivator, both of irrigated and unirrigated crops,
definite guidance on the point. The first step is the careful study of the existing material and the
correlation of the results hitherto obtained. The second step is the formulation of a programme of
experiment with the object of ascertaining, with all possible accuracy, the extent to which
fertilizers can be used with profit. This programme should include the laying out of a short series
of permanent manurial plots, on lines appropriate to conditions in India, on provincial
experimental farms. Only by conducting manurial experiments over a number of years will it be
possible to compile such records as would make a substantial contribution to the knowledge of
the problems of manures and manuring under tropical and sub-tropical conditions about which
little is yet known. The scientific value of continuous experiments depends on accurate methods
of collection of all relevant data with a view to their subsequent correlation. All such schemes for
manurial trials would ordinarily be drawn up by the Director of Agriculture in close consultation
with the agricultural chemist and the deputy directors of agriculture under whose immediate
supervision the experiments would be conducted. We wish especially to emphasize the
importance of manurial experiments on unirrigated land as the cultivator of such land, who runs,
with his very limited financial resources, the risk of losing his crop in an unfavourable season,
stands most in need of guidance in this matter. The study of the available data and the
formulation of an ordered programme to replace the present somewhat haphazard methods of
dealing with the problem would, we think, provide sufficient work to justify an officer of the
Agricultural Department being placed on special duty for a limited period, but we prefer to make
no definite recommendations on this point and to leave it to the consideration of the local
governments. Local conditions vary so greatly between province and province, especially in
regard to unirrigated land, that it does not appear necessary to attach an officer to Pusa specially
to assist the provinces in this investigation. The Council of Agricultural Research should be in a
position to advise as to the manner in which the experiments can best be conducted so as to
secure uniformity of method as far as possible and to render the results obtained in one province
of some value to other provinces.

Internal Sources of Supply and their Development

(a) Farmyard Manure

82. The first question which arises, in considering the internal supplies of nitrogen available in
India and the methods by which these can best be developed, is that of the use of farmyard
manure as fuel. The view is generally held that it is the absence of a sufficient supply of firewood
which, over large parts of India, compels the burning of cow-dung as fuel. But it must be
recognized that there is often a definite preference for this form of fuel, as its slow burning
character is regarded as making it specially suitable to the needs of the Indian housewife. Thus
we are informed that, in Burma, immigrant labourers from India persist in using cow-dung as
fuel although an abundant supply of firewood is readily available. Our evidence does not suggest
any alternative fuel for domestic purposes in districts where wood and coal are dear. In some
tracts, cotton-stalks, the dry stubble and stalks of tur (Cajanus indicus), the pith of jute and sann
hemp and the bagass of sugar-cane, where the use of the McGlashan furnace leaves a surplus
which is not required for boiling the juice, could be utilized for fuel to a far greater extent than
they are at present. Fuel plantations, more especially irrigated plantations, the formation of which
we discuss in Chapters VIII and X, can assist only in a very limited area. In our view, the
agricultural departments have a difficult task to perform in attempting to promote the utilization
of farmyard manure for its proper purpose. Propaganda in this direction can only prove effective
if an alternative fuel is suggested and if the cultivator can be sufficiently imbued with a sense of
thrift to induce him to burn that which will probably seem to him a less satisfactory substance.
There has been little advance in regard to the preservation of manure since Dr. Voelcker wrote
his report on Indian agriculture in 1893. The practice of providing litter for cattle is rarely, if
ever, adopted except on government farms. No efforts are made by the cultivator to preserve
cattle urine. Manure pits are still seldom found in Indian villages. Where they do exist, no
attempts are made to preserve the manurial value of the contents or to safeguard the public health
by covering the material with earth.

(b) Composts

83. While the task is difficult, there is no doubt that something can be done to promote the better
preservation of such farmyard manure as is not diverted to consumption as fuel, by using it as a
compost with village sweepings, leaves, and other decomposed vegetable matter. In this
connexion, we are impressed by the results achieved in the Gurgaon district of the Punjab, where
many villages have, as a direct consequence of propaganda, adopted the practice of depositing in
pits all village sweepings and refuse, along with a proportion of cow dung. The effects on crops
to which such manure has been applied, and on the sanitation and general amenities of the
villages, were most marked. There is no reason why efforts on similar lines should not be made
in other parts of the country. The Indian cultivator has much to learn from the Chinese and the
Japanese cultivator in regard to the manufacture of composts. Artificial fertilizers are used as
little in China as they are in India; but there is no organic refuse of any kind in that country
which does not find its way back to the fields as a fertilizer. Not only is all human waste
carefully collected and utilized, but enormous quantities of compost are manufactured from the
waste of cattle, horses, swine and poultry, combined with herbage straw, and other similar waste.
Garbage and sewage are both used as manure. The agricultural departments in India are fully
alive to the necessity for instructing the cultivator in the better preservation of manure and the
use of composts, but there is great scope for an extension of their activities in this respect. For
example, the possibilities of manufacturing synthetic farmyard manure from waste organic
material on the lines worked out at Rothamsted deserve to be fully investigated. At Rothamsted,
research was at first directed towards discovering artificial means whereby the decomposition of
straw might be effected. Straw contains three essentials to plant growth, viz. nitrogen, phosphate
and potash. The work proved successful and a method was devised for treating large quantities of
straw for the preparation of manure. Reagents were subsequently discovered which were capable
of bringing about the rapid rotting, not only of straw but also of other plant residues, and thus of
producing a valuable organic manure at a moderate cost. Synthetic farmyard manure is being
prepared by the departments of agriculture in Madras and the Central Provinces. The agricultural
department in Bengal, following the valuable lead given by Rothamsted, has attempted the
manufacture of artificial farmyard manure on a considerable scale. Cattle urine and washings
from cattle-sheds, mixed with bone meal, have been used with immediate success. Weeds,
various grasses, sugar-cane trash, refuse, straw, prickly-pear, etc., have all proved capable of
breaking down into excellent material approximating more or less closely in appearance and in
composition to that of cow-dung. Experiments have also been made in Burma but have not so far
proved successful. Valuable work on the preparation of composts from night soil and refuse and
from cattle urine, weeds, etc., is being done by Dr. Fowler at Cawnpore. In Europe, work of this
character has now emerged from the experimental stage and processes devised for dealing with
various classes of materials are already on the market. In India, however, the departments
concerned have still to devise and introduce a practical method which can be used with profit by
the ordinary cultivator on his own land.​
​
The manurial value of earth obtained from the sites of abandoned villages is recognized in many
parts of India. The quantities available are, however, negligible in relation to the manurial
requirements of the country.

(c) Night Soil

84. Prejudice against the use of night soil has deterred the cultivator in India from utilizing to the
best advantage a valuable source of combined nitrogen. There is, however, evidence that this
prejudice is weakening and that, where night soil is available in the form of poudrette, it is
tending to disappear. From the point of view of public health, the use of poudrette is preferable to
that of crude night soil and, given co-operation between agricultural departments and municipal
authorities, there is hope that the manufacture of poudrette should prove profitable to
municipalities and beneficial to the cultivators in their neighbourhood. The methods of
converting night soil into poudrette adopted at Nasik and elsewhere in the Bombay Presidency
have been highly successful and appear well worth study by other municipalities. The advantages
of this system of dealing with night soil appear to us to justify a recommendation that the
departments of local self-government in all provinces should bring them to the notice of all
municipal authorities and should also take steps to establish a centre at which members of the
municipal sanitary staffs can receive a suitable training in this method of disposing of night soil.
The agricultural departments should keep a watchful eye on all experiments in the conversion of
night soil into manure and should themselves conduct such experiments. Where municipal
authorities in any part of the country are in a position to supply it, the agricultural departments
should assist them to find a market by arranging demonstrations of the value of night soil as
manure on plots in the neighbourhood of the towns.​
​
Another way in which night soil can be converted into a form in which its use is less obnoxious
to the cultivator is by the adoption of the activated sludge process. This process reduces sewage,
by the passage of air through it, to a product which can either be used as required in the form of
effluent from the sewage tanks or dried and sent where there is a demand for it. The activated
sludge process is suitable only for towns which have a sewage system. It is much more
expensive than conversion into poudrette but has the advantage of conserving a larger percentage
of nitrogen. Up to the present, this system has been adopted in India on any considerable scale
only at Tatanagar. The possibility of selling the product at a price that would yield a fair return
on the cost of manufacture must depend upon a careful survey of all the relevant factors,
including the local market for the product. In estimating the cost of the necessary plant, due
regard should be paid to the cost which would be involved in installing any alternative method of
sewage disposal, and, if it should prove possible to place a valuable fertilizer at the disposal of
the cultivators at a price they can afford to pay, without risk of imposing any additional net
charge upon the local ratepayers, we think that it is in the public interest that such schemes
should be adopted.

(d) Leguminous Crops

85. Another indigenous source of combined nitrogen to which increasing attention is now being
paid by the agricultural departments in India, is leguminous crops and green-manures. The value
of leguminous crops in his rotation has always been recognized by the cultivator and the work
before the agricultural departments in regard to these crops lies not so much in popularizing the
principle of their cultivation as in discovering the varieties of leguminous crops best suited to
increase the soil fertility and in recommending such varieties to the cultivators. Recent research
has drawn attention to the fact that such crops vary greatly in their power of fixing nitrogen in
the soil and should not be regarded as of equal value. Moreover, it is only when the leguminous
crop is grown for green-manure that, in all cases, the soil gains in nitrogen. Mr. Howard
instances gram as a crop which improves the soil and Java indigo as a crop which seriously
depletes the supply of combined nitrogen.

(e) Green-Manures

86. The agricultural departments in India have devoted much time and attention to work on
green-manure crops with a view to discovering the crops which can best be used for
green-manure, the time at which they should be grown and the manner in which they should be
applied. Their work has shown that sann hemp on the whole gives the best result and it would
doubtless be more often grown for use as green-manure were it not that it may exhaust so much
of the moisture in the soil that, when it is ploughed in, there is not sufficient left both to
decompose it and to enable a second crop to grow. Much experimental work is still, therefore,
required to discover the green-manure crops which can best be included in the cultivators'
rotations. The economics of green-manure crops from the point of view of the small cultivator
also require to be worked out. The small cultivator is naturally hesitant about growing a crop
which only indirectly brings him any financial advantage. With his slender resources, it is indeed
not unreasonable for him to take the view that he cannot afford to sacrifice even a catch crop in
this way and it is therefore not until the agricultural departments are in a position to demonstrate
to him beyond a shadow of doubt the paying nature of green-manure crops on small holdings that
these departments will be justified in persuading the small cultivator to adopt them or that their
advocacy of them will stand any chance of success. In the present state of knowledge, such crops
would appear an expedient to be adopted by the larger landholder and, for the small cultivator, a
leguminous crop in his rotation would seem to hold out better prospects of benefit.​
​
The possibility of growing such crops as dhaincha and ground-nut, the leaves of which can be
used as green-manure without interfering with the commercial value of the crop, is worth
consideration. The use of ground-nut in this way for green-manure would furnish an additional
reason for extending the area of this valuable crop. In the case of crops of a woody nature such as
sann hemp, it must, however, be remembered that their utility as green-manure for the
succeeding rabi crops depends to a large extent on the presence of sufficient moisture in the soil
to rot the dry stems and roots.​
​
In Madras, the Punjab and the Central Provinces, the experiment has been made of encouraging
the cultivation of green-manure crops under irrigation by the remission of the charge for water
from government sources or irrigation. The fact that the results have so far been disappointing
may be due to a failure to accompany the remission with sufficient propaganda as to the
advantages to be derived from the growing of these crops. We think that the continuance of the
concession and its extension to other areas should be conditional on its being accompanied by an
active campaign of propaganda, directed particularly to the larger landholder rather than the
small cultivator. All areas where the concession is made should be kept under regular
examination. If, after a period of five to ten years, it should appear that the concession given in
regard to water charges has failed to achieve its main purpose, it should be rescinded.

(f) 0il Cakes

87. The loss to India of a valuable source of combined nitrogen as the result of the export of so
large a proportion of its production of oil seeds was emphasized by many witnesses before us.
The yield and exports of oil seeds during the last fifteen years are shown in the following table.​

Totals by Five Year Periods

Cotton Ground-n Rape and Linseed Sesamum Total of Total of

Seed ut Mustard Columns all Oil
2-6 Seeds

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1910-11 to 1914-15

Yield 8,419 3,475 6,129 2,541 2,354 22,918

('000 tons)
Exports 1,125 1,035 1,149 1,983 494 5,786 6,832
('000 tons)

Percentag 13 30 19 78 21 25 -
e of
Exports to
yield

1915-16 to 1919-20

Yield 8,545 4,758 5,362 2,171 2,104 22,940 -

('000 tons)

Exports 387 567 495 1,283 166 2,898 3,408

('000 tons)

Percentag 4.5 12 9 59 8 12.5 -

e of
Exports to
yield

1920-21 to 1924-25

Yield 10,733 5,786 5,602 2,203 2,336 26,660 -

('000 tons)

Exports 686 1,240 1,181 1,376 119 4,602 5,116

('000 tons)

Percentag 6.5 21 21 62 5 17 -
e of
exports to
yield

Total of 15 years 1910-11 to 1924-25

Total 27,697 14,019 17,093 6,915 6,794 72,518 -

Yield
('000 tons)

Total 2,198 2,842 2,825 4,642 779 13,286 15,356

Exports
('000 tons)

Percentag 8 20 16.5 67 11.5 18 -

e of
 exports to
yield

These figures indicate that, of the out-turn of the seed of cotton, ground-nut, rape and mustard, linseed
and sesamum, the exports amount to an average of eighteen per cent and they suggest the loss which the
soil of India suffers by the export of a valuable by-product on the assumption that the whole of the
nitrogen contained might be returned to the soil. Under existing practice, indeed, much of this material
would probably be fed to cattle and subsequently dissipated as fuel. But it is not surprising that the view
that an export tax on oil seeds and oil cakes within the purchasing power of the cultivator has found much
favour and even received the support of the Board of Agriculture in 1919 and of the majority of the Indian
Taxation Enquiry Committee, but not that of the Indian Fiscal Commission. Some witnesses before us
went further and urged the total prohibition of export. Whilst we fully recognize the advantages to Indian
agriculture which would follow from a greatly extended use of certain oil cakes as a manure for the more
valuable crops such as sugar-cane, tobacco, cotton and tea, we cannot but feel that those who suggest the
attainment of this object by the restriction or prohibition of exports have failed to realize the economic
implications of their proposal. In the first place, it must be remembered that India has no monopoly of the
world's supplies of oil-seeds and is not even the chief supplier of those seeds. The world's linseed market
is controlled by the Argentine crop and the sesamum market by the Chinese crop. The competition of
West Africa in the supply of edible oils is becoming increasingly serious. In these circumstances, it is an
economic axiom that an export duty will be borne by the producer and that the cultivator will, therefore,
receive a lower price for the oil seeds exported. The acreage under oil seeds in British India is still
considerably below the pre-war level and the tendency to replace oil seeds by other crops which may be
inferred from this would undoubtedly be greatly accentuated if any effective restrictions on export were
imposed. The immediate fall in price, which would result from such restrictions, would tend to a
reduction of area and consequently of out-turn. Even if such a fall in prices were obtained by the method
advocated, the gain to the cultivator qua consumer would be far more than counterbalanced by the
disadvantage to the cultivator qua grower by the loss of the income he at present derives from his export
market. In the second place, it may be argued that if the Indian oil-crushing industry were fully developed
to deal with the present out-turn of oil seeds, then the area might remain at its present level and there
would grow up a considerable export of oil, while the cake would remain to be used as a feeding stuff or
manure. The market for oil in this country is, however, a very limited one and will remain so until India
has reached a more advanced stage of industrial development. The oil-crushing industry would, therefore,
have to depend mainly on the export market for the sale of its main product. The problem of cheap and
efficient transport to the great industrial centres of the west presents almost insurmountable difficulties.
Oil-crushers in India would find themselves in competition with a well-established and highly efficient
industry and there is little reason to believe that their costs of production or the quality of their product
would enable them to compete successfully with that industry. In the third place, even if restriction on
exports succeeded in reducing the price of oil cakes, this would mean that a section of the agricultural
community would be penalized for the benefit of another and much smaller section, for the growers of oil
seeds would probably not be those who would make the most use of the oil cakes.

A similar line of reasoning applies to oil cakes, the average exports of which from India for the five years
ending 1925-26 were 165,600 tons, against a negligible import. The oil cakes exported from India are a
far less important factor in the world's supply than are the oil seeds and, in these circumstances, the
burden of the duty would be entirely borne by the producer, in this case the crushing industry. There can,
in our view, be little doubt that the effect of a duty on oil cakes, with or without a duty on oil seeds, would
be the curtailment of oil-crushing activities and a diminution in the available supply of oil cakes, in other
words, it would have effects entirely different from those desired by its advocates. It is not, therefore, by
any restriction on trade that Indian agriculture is likely to reap greater advantages from the supply of
combined nitrogen available in the large crops of oil seeds she produces. The only methods by which
these advantages can be secured are by the natural development of the oil-crushing industry coupled with
great changes in cattle management and in the use of fuel. The question how far the development of the
industry can be promoted by Government assistance in the matter of overcoming difficulties of transport
and in the form of technological advice in regard to improved methods of manufacture and
standardization is one for the departments of industries rather than the departments of agriculture. An
extension of the oil-crushing industry would undoubtedly tend to promote the welfare of Indian
agriculture and we would commend the investigation of its possibilities to the earnest consideration of all
local governments.

(g) Sulphate of Ammonia

88. The important potential sources of supply of combined nitrogen discussed in the preceding
paragraphs are supplemented to a small though increasing extent by the sulphate of ammonia
recovered as a by-product from coal at the Tata Iron and Steel Company's works at Jamshedpur
and on the coalfields of Bengal and Bihar and Orissa. There has been a very marked increase
both in the consumption and production of this fertilizer in India in recent years. Of the 4,436
tons produced in 1919, all but 472 tons were exported and there were no imports. In 1925, of the
estimated production of 14,771 tons, 6,395 tons were retained in India. With three exceptions, all
the producers of sulphate of ammonia in India have joined the British Sulphate of Ammonia
Federation which, through its Indian agents, is conducting active propaganda to promote the use
of artificial fertilizers and has established a number of local agencies in agricultural areas in
several provinces. The manner in which this source of supply is being developed is very
satisfactory and it is still more satisfactory that a market for increasing quantities of the sulphate
of ammonia produced in India is being found in the country. The importance of the price factor
need hardly be stressed, for though the present average price of Rs. 140 per ton free on rail at
Calcutta is much lower than that which prevailed immediately after the War, it is sufficiently
high to preclude the application of sulphate of ammonia to any except the most valuable of the
cultivators' crops, such as sugar-cane or garden crops.

(h) Artificial Nitrogenous Fertilizers

89. A method of increasing the internal supplies of combined nitrogen in India, the adoption of
which has received powerful support, is the establishment of synthetic processes for obtaining
combined nitrogen from the air in forms suitable for use as fertilizers. The Indian Sugar
Committee was of opinion that, from the point of view of the development of the sugar industry
alone, the successful introduction of synthetic processes in India was a matter of the first
importance. That Committee recommended that the possibilities of utilizing the hydro-electric
schemes, which were at that time under investigation in the Punjab and the United Provinces, for
the fixation of nitrogen should be thoroughly examined and that, if it were found that electric
energy could be obtained at a rate approximating to Rs. 60 per kilowatt year, a unit plant of
sufficient size to afford trustworthy information should be installed. Of the three processes in use
for the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen, the arc process, the cyanamide process and the
manufacture of ammonia by direct synthesis, the Committee considered the cyanamide process
as the one which offered the best prospects of success in India but drew attention to the
possibilities of the Haber process for obtaining synthetic sulphate of ammonia.​
​
The position has changed greatly since the report of the Sugar Committee was written. The full
effects of the diversion of the capital, enterprise and, above all, the research devoted to the
manufacture of munitions to the production of peace time requirements, had not been felt in
1920. Since then, it has resulted in a fall in the world's price of nitrogen by fifty per cent, and
there are prospects of still lower prices in the near future. We see no reason to question the view
which was placed before us in the course of the evidence we took in London that, in present
circumstances, only very large units with a minimum capacity of about 150,000 tons of pure
nitrogen per annum can be expected to pay even under the most favourable conditions in Great
Britain and on the Continent of Europe and that conditions in India make it much less likely that
even a unit of that capacity would prove a paying proposition. The possibilities of manufacturing
nitrogen from the air in India have already been exhaustively examined by a leading firm of
chemical manufacturers in England, which has decided against proceeding with the project. It is
probable that no factory on a scale which could be contemplated by any local government, or
even by the Imperial Government, would be in a position to produce synthetic nitrogenous
fertilizers at a price less than that at which they can be imported. The whole object of
establishing such a factory, that of producing fertilizers at a price which would place them within
the reach of a far greater proportion of the agricultural community than is at present in a position
to use them, would be defeated if a protective duty were imposed to enable its out-turn to
compete against imported supplies. It is also to be hoped that, should the demand for artificial
fertilizers in India make it worth while, private enterprise will come forward to erect synthetic
nitrogen works in this country. While the economics of the industry remain as they stand to-day,
we are unable to recommend any further investigation into the subject under government
auspices.

Central Organization for Research on Fertilizers

90. The discussion of the question of nitrogenous fertilizers would not be complete without
mention of the proposal placed before us by the British Sulphate of Ammonia Federation, Ltd.,
and Nitram, Ltd., for the establishment by the Government of India of a central fertilizer
organization on which the Imperial and provincial agricultural departments as well as the
important fertilizer interests would be represented. The two companies, which are already
spending 23,000 pounds annually on research and propaganda in India, expressed their
willingness to increase this amount to 50,000 pounds, the additional amount to be handed over to
a central organization constituted in the manner they suggest, provided that an equal sum is
contributed by Government. The companies have made it clear that the research and propaganda
they contemplate would be on the use of fertilizers generally and would not in any way be
confined to that of the products they manufacture or sell. This offer, though not disinterested is
undoubtedly generous and we have given it our most careful consideration. We regret, however,
that we are unable to see our way to recommend its acceptance. We cannot but feel that,
whatever safeguards were imposed, the work of, and the advice given by, an organization, at
least half the cost of which was borne by firms closely interested in the subject matter of the
investigation, would be suspect and would thus be deprived of much of its usefulness, especially
since, as we have pointed out, the agricultural departments in India are not yet in a position to
pronounce authoritatively on the relative advantages of natural and artificial fertilizers. We,
therefore, consider it preferable that the agricultural departments should remain entirely
independent in this matter but we need hardly say that we would welcome the establishment by
the two firms mentioned, or by any other fertilizer firms, of their own research stations in India
working in the fullest co-operation with the agricultural departments, the Indian Tea Association,
the Indian Central Cotton Committee and any other bodies interested in the fertilizer question. So
much work remains to be done on the manurial problems of India that it is desirable that every
possible agency should be employed on it. To the supply by the fertilizer interests of free
samples for trial by the agricultural departments there can, of course, be no objection, but we do
not consider that any financial assistance beyond what is involved in this should be accepted. In
coming to this conclusion, we have not overlooked the fact that the Rothamsted Experimental
Station accepts grants from fertilizer interests to meet the cost of experiments with their
products. Rothamsted is not, however, a government institution and, further, the experiments it
carries out are only undertaken on the clear understanding that the information obtained is not to
be used for purposes of propaganda. The conditions at Rothamsted are thus entirely different
from those under which it is proposed that the central fertilizer organization in India should
function.

Bones and Bone Meal

91. Nitrogen deficiency can be remedied to some extent by the application of bones and bone
meal. This form of fertilizer is, however, of greater value as a means of rectifying the deficiency
of phosphates which, as we have pointed out, is more prominent in peninsular India and Lower
Burma than that of nitrogen. As with other forms of combined nitrogen, an important quantity of
this fertilizer is lost to India by a failure to apply it to the soil and by export. Except in the War
period, the total export of bones from India has shown little variation in the last twenty years.
The average exports for the five years ending 1914-15 were 90,452 tons, valued at RS.64.20
lakhs. For the five years ending 1924-25 they were 87,881 tons, valued at Rs. 95.94 lakhs. In
1925-26 they were 84,297 tons valued at Rs. 89.16 lakhs and in 1926-27 100,005 tons valued at
Rs. 97.76 lakhs. The imports of bone manures are negligible. Practically the whole of the exports
are in the form of the manufactured product, that is in the form of crushed bones or of bone meal,
the highest figure for the export of uncrushed bones in recent years being 545 tons in 1924-25.
Only a very small proportion of the bone manure manufactured in India is consumed in the
country. During the War period, when prices were low, freight space difficult to obtain and
export demand weak, it was estimated that not more than ten per cent of the total production was
consumed in India, and this at a time when the prices of all Indian agricultural produce were
exceptionally high. Enquiries we have made show that there is no reason to believe that the
percentage retained for internal consumption has increased since the close of the War. Many
witnesses before us advocated that the heavy drain of phosphates involved in the large export of
bones from this country should be ended by the total prohibition of exports and this proposal
received the support of the Board of Agriculture in 1919, whilst the majority of the Indian
Taxation Enquiry Committee recommended the imposition of an export duty. For much the same
reasons as those for which we have rejected the proposal for an export duty on oil seeds and oil
cakes, we are unable to support this recommendation. As was pointed out by the Board of
Agriculture in 1922, local consumption, even in the most favourable conditions in recent years,
has accounted for such a small fraction of the total production that the industry could not
continue to exist on that fraction, and the imposition of an export duty would involve a serious
danger of its extinction through the closing down of its markets. Further, any restrictions on
export would deprive one of the poorest sections of the population of a source of income of
which it stands badly in need.​
​
For slow growing crops such as fruit trees the rough crushing of bones is sufficient, but for other
crops fine grinding is required. The crushing mills are at present located almost entirely at the
ports and, in order to get bone manures to the cultivator, the establishment of small
bone-crushing factories at up-country centres where sufficient supplies of bones are available has
been advocated. A far more thorough investigation of the economics of the bone-crushing
industry than has yet been carried out is, we consider, required before the establishment of such
mills can safely be undertaken by private enterprise. The first essential is to obtain definite data
in regard to the price at which, and the crops for which, the use of bone meal is advantageous to
the cultivator. We suggest that the agricultural departments should take early steps to collect
these data. The department of Government responsible should also investigate the cost of
processing bones with special reference to those districts in which the development of
hydro-electric schemes gives promise of a supply of cheap power. It should then be a
comparatively easy matter to determine whether the level of prices is such as to justify any
attempts on the part of Government to interest private, or preferably co-operative, enterprise in
the establishment of bone-crushing mills in suitable centres. In determining the level of prices,
allowance should be made for the advantage which local mills will enjoy in competition for local
custom with the large units at the ports through the saving to the local concerns of the two-way
transportation charges borne by the product of the port mills.

Fish Manures

92. Little need be said about fish manures which are another source of supply of both phosphates
and nitrogen. The export of these from India for the five years ending 1925-26 averaged 16,774
tons valued at Rs. 19.94 lakhs. In 1926-Z7 only 7,404 tons were exported valued at Rs. 9.21
lakhs. Except for a negligible export from Bombay and Sind, the exports of fish manures are
confined to the west coast of Madras and parts of Burma.​
​
The arguments against the prohibition of the export of bones or for the imposition of an export
duty apply equally to fish manures. Any restriction of export would involve most serious
hardship on the small and impoverished fishing communities of the two provinces, and cannot,
therefore, be justified. The only measures which can be undertaken to lessen the export of fish
manures, without damage to the fish-oil industry or the curtailment of the amount of fish caught,
are measures to establish that such manures can be profitably used for Indian agriculture at the
price obtained for them in the export market.

Natural Phosphates

93. Reference should be made here to the extensive deposits of natural phosphates which are to
be found in the Trichinopoly district of Madras and in South Bihar. In neither tract do these
phosphates exist in a form in which they can be utilized economically for the manufacture of
superphosphate; and their employment in agriculture has been limited to applications of the
crude material in pulverized form. This source of supply does not offer any important
possibilities.'

Appendix B

Some Aspects of Soil Improvement in Relation to Crop

Production
By G. Clarke, C.I.E., F.I.C., M.L.C.

(Proceedings of the Seventeenth Indian Science Congress, Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta,
1930, p. 23.)

I ASK your permission to direct your attention to some aspects of soil improvement in relation to
crop production. I propose to pass in brief review some of our problems and then to touch on the
work to which my colleagues, Khan Sahib Sheikh Mohammad Naib Husain, Rai Sahib S. C.
Banerjee, and myself have devoted a number of years at the Shahjahanpur Research Station. My
subject is directly connected with the supply of the first necessity of life, namely, food. By what
methods is the world going to continue to feed its growing population? It is increasing at the rate
of nearly twenty millions a year, and it cannot be suddenly checked. Can food be found for all
these extra mouths, or will the pressure on our land resources become unbearable, and end in
disaster? That is the colossal problem facing the world in the next few generations. It must be
met either by a continual expansion of cultivation, or an intensification of production on land
already cultivated.​
​
How do we stand in India in respect to these questions? I have proceeded in a somewhat
empirical fashion to ascertain the relation between population and arable land. I have selected, in
making my estimate, the figures used in international statistics, the total area sown and the
current fallows. I have deducted the area required for the production of exported cotton, food
grains, oil seeds, jute, and tea, which account for about eighty per cent of the value of our
exports. This estimate is admittedly rough and must be regarded as suggestive rather than as an
exact measure, but it is sufficiently near to illustrate my point.​
​
I have taken the year 1922-23, following the census year 1921, and the year 1925-26. In 1922-23
the total area sown in that part of India for which agricultural returns are made was 327 million
acres, 61 were under fallow, making a total of 388 million acres. From this may be deducted as
producing exported material for cotton 14, for food grains 9, for oil seeds 5, for jute 2 for tea 0.6
million acres, or 31 million acres in round numbers. So that 357 million acres are left to supply
the requirements in home produced food and other essential commodities of the 292 million
people who live in the territory covered by these figures, viz. 1.2 acres per unit population.​
​
A similar calculation for 1925-26 gives the same result. I have selected for a summary
comparison the United States of America and France, two countries possessing points of
resemblance to India. In both, as in India, agriculture is of predominant importance. In the
United States 356 million acres are in cultivation: 65 million producing exported material may be
deducted from this, leaving 291 million acres of cultivated land devoted to supplying a
population of approximately 112 million, or 2.6 acres per unit of population. The dominant
characteristic of American economic life has hitherto been abundance of land resources. France,
a country which is largely self-supporting, has 36.3 million hectares of cultivated land for a
population of 39.3 million, approximately 2.3 acres for each head of the population.​
​
In considering these figures we have to allow for the fact that the vegetarian diet adopted by our
people is more economical of the resources of the soil than the diet of the people of the United
States and France. Living is cheap in India, but when all has been said that can be said, we are
left with the plain fact before us that we have one-half the area of cultivated land for a unit of
population.​
​
The past experience of the world shows that, as long as new land of the necessary quality is
available, increased food will be obtained less by increased skill and expenditure on old land
than by taking up new land. Our map has shown for several decades well over a hundred million
acres in the British provinces of India classified as culturable waste. Why is not new land coming
into cultivation? I cannot give a complete answer. No such process can be observed in steady
operation on a scale sufficient to raise the per capita area of cultivation to a level which will meet
our food requirements. Some recent settlements in this province show an increase in cultivation
of only one to three per cent in thirty years, while in others the area is stationary. For a number of
reasons the area of culturable waste gives an unreal conception of our resources. Much of the
land thus classified includes areas physically capable of being employed for crops only when our
need is so extreme that considerations of cost of utilization are relatively secondary. Fifty per
cent we know is situated in Burma and Assam, out of the sphere of action of our chief
agricultural races. A great deal is in tarai tracts where health reasons prevent extensive
settlement. Land is coming under the plough, to some extent, in the villages of the Sarda Canal
area in these provinces, and will do so elsewhere as irrigation schemes mature, but in India, as in
other parts of the world, new land of the necessary quality for food crops is no longer easy to
find.​
​
This brings me to the first part of my argument -- the necessity of increasing the acre yield of
land now under the plough if an ample supply of food and the home-grown necessaries of life is
to be assured to the Indian worker, and his standard of living raised above subsistence level. It is
a difficult problem but it is not insoluble.​
​
When I considered this matter some months ago, I asked myself three questions:

1.​ What factors are in our favour, and what are against us, when we begin to intensify our
cultivation?
2.​ Will the knowledge and experience of other countries help to accelerate our progress?
What new knowledge do we nee
3.​ What is the quantitative measure of the result we may expect?

I propose to give you the answers that suggested themselves to me, based on conditions in these
provinces where my experience has been gained.​
​
We have in our favour two things. In the first place, soil that is easy to manage and quickly
responds to treatment, and, secondly, agricultural workers attached to their calling and
possessing a strongly developed land sense which, by some curious twist in our make-up, can
only be acquired in childhood. We shall not come up against a shortage of agricultural workers of
the kind that is hindering development in Australia and Canada. In these countries, a high degree
of skill has to be directed to economy of labour by the use of machinery and labour-saving
devices. In India, our efforts will have to be devoted to economizing land. We are better placed
than most countries as regards the primary essential for increasing production per unit of land,
namely, man-power. You may ask me, 'What is delaying our progress with two such assets?' This
opens up a wide sociological study. I believe ignorance and a larger share of ill-health than
should fall to the lot of an average being play a part. The stimulus required seems to be education
of a rural type. I cannot, however, pursue this issue, and return to my agricultural text.​
​
We have to contend against difficult weather conditions and short growing seasons requiring
early maturing and specialized varieties of crops. The Howards, in The Development of Indian
Agriculture, describe graphically the effect of the monsoon on the soil and on the people. It is
indeed the dominant factor in rural India.​
​
We shall always at intervals experience years of short rainfall and this fact gives additional force
to my argument for increasing the acre yield in favourable seasons by improved soil management
if we are to avoid starvation. Much has been done to intensify yields without any commensurate
increase of labour on soil improvement by the introduction of more heavily cropping varieties. I
need only quote as examples wheat and cotton in the Punjab and wheat and sugar-cane in the
United Provinces, which are adding crores to the cultivators' income. Indian conditions, however,
test the skill of the plant breeder very severely and further steps in improvement in this direction
are not going to be easily won.​
​
I now pass on to that part of my subject which has greater interest for a scientific audience than
some of the stubborn facts I have placed before you. I mean the consideration of some aspects of
recent work on soil improvement and the lines on which enquiry may be directed in India.​
​
Since Boussingault introduced the method of exact field experiment in 1834, research on the soil
and the conditions of crop growth has been continuous in Europe and America. The methods of
approach have become more exact with each advance in pure science. We, therefore, start our
work on soil improvement in India with tools ready made. Investigations carried out in other
countries have given us the principles involved and often the technique of methods of research.
Our work for the moment is to apply them to conditions where soil processes differ widely both
in intensity and time of occurrence, from those of temperate climates. I have been impressed by
the desirability of applying to our problems a conception developed in recent years by the
Cambridge and Rothamsted workers, which has given a new and wider significance to the field
experiment. The final yield gives us no indication of what happens during the plant's life or how
it responds to factors operating at successive stages of growth. The modern method makes
quantitative observations of crops throughout the period of growth and examines the results by
statistical methods This is nothing more than reducing to exact measurement and scientific
treatment the observations which every practical farmer makes but does not formulate. The
advantage is obvious. Information covering a wider range than the old type of field experiment
can be obtained in a few years, instead of taking generations. You will remember that Lawes and
Gilbert waited twenty years before discussing the results of their experiments. The field
experiment lasting twenty or more years no longer fulfils our requirements. We want results in a
reasonable time, accompanied by proof of their reliability, which will tell us not only the final
yield but how that yield is obtained.​
​
This leads up to another conception, namely, the critical periods of crops which will repay closer
quantitative study in a country characterized by singularly short growing periods and rapidly
changing conditions. By critical period, I mean the relatively short interval during which the
plant reaches the maximum sensibility to a given factor and during which the intensity of that
factor will have the greatest effect on yield. These periods seem to be associated with some phase
of growth in which the plant is undergoing modifications demanding the rapid formation and
movement of food material. Italian workers have found that the twenty days before the crop
comes into ear constitutes an important critical period for wheat in relation to humidity and soil
moisture. If during this period these factors are in defect of the minimum needed for the normal
development of the plant, the crop will be small even if there is abundance throughout the rest of
the vegetative period.​
​
Our observations at Shahjahanpur indicate that two periods in the growth of sugar-cane have
special significance: (1) May and early June when the tillers and root system are developing; and
(2) August and September when the main storage of sugar takes place. A check received at either
of these periods permanently reduces the yield. The acre yield of sugar is positively and closely
correlated with the amount of nitrate nitrogen in the soil during the first period, and with soil
moisture and humidity in the second period.​
​
Food crops pre-eminently demand combined nitrogen. You will remember how Sir William
Crookes startled the world thirty years ago by the statement that the wheat-eating races were in
deadly peril of starvation owing to the rapid exhaustion of soil nitrogen. The age in which he
lived had become accustomed to abundant supplies of cheap food from the great plains of the
American Continent. Fertility accumulated since the glacial period by luxuriant plant growth and
bacterial activity suddenly became available for exploitation, and was plundered at an appalling
rate by rough and ready methods of cultivation. Nitrogen was disappearing from the soil out of
all proportion to the amount recovered in the crop. The extraordinary fertility of some of these
new regions is shown by the data recorded by Shutt, an acre of soil to a depth of one foot
containing from 20,000 to 25,000 lb. Of nitrogen in an acre foot of soil in these provinces, which
lies between the limits of 1,000 and 3,000 lb. I shall refer to this again shortly.​
​
Crookes was almost the first to realize that there was a limit to cheap production from new land,
but his forecast was too gloomy. He visualized the exhaustion of the chief granary of the western
world within a generation or two. In some important respects he misapprehended the problem.
He did not know as we know now that other agencies step in and stop the plunder of the soil
before it has gone too far. It is only under improper methods of cropping and cultivation that
permanent soil deterioration is a real and dangerous phenomenon. Land properly handled does
not become exhausted. Much of the land of Europe has been cultivated since the days of the
Romans or even earlier. It is, if anything, more fertile than ever. In India, we have in existence a
method of farming which has maintained for ten centuries at least a perfect balance between the
nitrogen requirements of the crops we harvest and the processes which recuperate fertility.​
​
When we examine the facts, we must put the Northern Indian cultivator down as the most
economical farmer in the world as far as the utilization of the potent element of fertility --
nitrogen -- goes. In this respect he is more skilful than his Canadian brother. He cannot take a
heavy overdraft of nitrogen from the soil. He has only the small current account provided by the
few pounds annually added by nature, yet he raises a crop of wheat on irrigated land in the
United Provinces that is not far removed from the Canadian average. He does more with a little
nitrogen than any farmer I ever heard of. We need not concern ourselves with soil deterioration
in these provinces. The present standard of fertility can be maintained indefinitely. This is not my
text. Production must be raised if we are to live in reasonable security and comfort.​
​
In one respect Crookes was right. He foresaw that the intensification of production required more
combined nitrogen than the limited supplies furnished by the distillation of coal and the nitrate
deposits, to counterbalance the colossal wastage which civilization and urban life bring about.
The fixation of atmospheric nitrogen was, as he put it, vital to the progress of civilized humanity.
This problem has been solved in the last ten years and is one of the remarkable achievements of
applied science. It could have been solved sooner if money had been forthcoming for long-range
research, but it took the War to bring us to our senses. Thirty years ago, the fixation of 29.4
grams of a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen at the expenditure of one horse-power was recorded
as a scientific achievement. In 1928-29 the estimated production of nitrogen compounds by
synthetic processes was equivalent to 1.3 million metric tons of pure nitrogen, or over 6 million
long tons of sulphate of ammonia, which can be sold at prices low in comparison with the prices
of agricultural produce. We are entering on an era of nitrogen plenty which is bound to react
favourably on the world's food production. One of our problems is to find out how we can make
use of this discovery in India. The probability is that the full benefit of fertilizers will be realized
only on land reasonably supplied with organic matter.​
​
I may be allowed here to sound a note of warning. Great as are the possibilities offered by
synthetic nitrogen compounds there is danger in adjusting our standards of living to increased
production based entirely on imported fertilizers. They may be cut off suddenly by international
disturbances. The War is too near an experience and the promise of universal peace too uncertain
to ignore this side of the question altogether. It will be but a wise precaution to establish their
manufacture in India when the correct way of using them has been worked out their value
demonstrated, and a demand created.​
​
Our problem is more complex than the simple addition of nitrogen compounds to the soil. We
have to face under peculiar conditions of climate the question of controlling moisture, organic
matter, and air supply in the soil, of regulating the supplies of nitrogen so that it may be available
in the right form and quantity when the plant most needs it, so that none may be wasted, and to
make use to the utmost of those processes by which nature supplies nitrogen free of charge.
These problems centre around the changes which organic material undergoes in the soil and the
nitrogen transformations which accompany them.​
​
We have two methods of soil improvement possessing enormous potentialities for increasing
crop production and so simple in operation that they can be used by everybody:

1.​ the preparation of quick-acting manures from waste organic material;

2.​ the use of green manure crops.

I do not propose to discuss recent work on the first method. The practical details have been
worked out thoroughly by the Howards at Indore, and by Fowler, Richards, and their co-workers
at Cawnpore. A paper on this subject is going to be placed before you by Dr. Fowler. I will not
anticipate what he is going to say beyond remarking that the results which he has allowed me to
examine place in our hands a method of the greatest value for increasing the out-turn of rabi
crops which require in this province a quicker acting manure than that provided by turning in a
green crop.​
​
We have been working for some years at Shahjahanpur on the utilization of green-manure for
sugar-cane. We have ploughed in on an average of three years' observations,218 maunds per acre
of sanai (Crotalaria juncea) which adds 50 maunds of dry organic material and 75 lb. of
nitrogen to each acre. We have succeeded in raising crops to 850 maunds per acre without the
addition of any fertilizing agent other than the sanai produced by the land itself.​
​
I give below the results of 27 randomized plots in the treated and unbtreated fields in 1928.​
 Sugar-cane maunds (82 Raw Sugar maunds per Dry Matter maunds per
2/7 lb.) per acre acre acre

Green-manure 847 ± 32 87.0 ± 3.6 246.1 ± 8.0

Control 649 ± 22 67.2 ± 2.6 200.1 ± 6.6

The illustration shows the crop in the field (Plate XII).

Plate XII. Green-manure experiment, Shahjahanpur, 1928-29

The practical result is worth Rs. 90 per acre. Our problem is to find out the conditions of cultivation
necessary to decompose sanai in such a way that: (1) well-aerated soil containing sufficient organic matter
to prevent rapid drying out is ready for the crop in March; and (2) the nitrogen exchanges are such that
this element is protected from loss until it is wanted, and is then present in a form which can be rapidly
mineralized for the use of the young crop.

Our method of soil treatment is to bring about the early stages of decomposition in the presence of ample
moisture. The rainfall after the sanai is ploughed in is carefully watched. If it is less than five inches in the
first fortnight of September the fields are irrigated. In this way we secure in most of our soils an abundant
fungal growth as the land slowly dries. We prevent large accumulations of nitrates in the autumn, which
may be lost before the sugar-cane is sown, and concentrate the nitrogen in easily decomposable organic
form in mycelial and microbial tissue, until it is wanted in mineral form in the spring.

Throughout the experiments we have made estimates of nitrate. The curves show the accumulation of
nitrogen in the first foot of fallow plots in the treated and control fields in 1928 and 1929 (Plate XIII).
 Plate XIII. Green-manure experiment, Shahjahanpur, 1928-29 (Graph)

Full-size image

The accumulation of nitrate reaches its maximum in May and June just before the first heavy rain. At this
time the crop is about one-third grown. We have not observed any subsequent large formation of nitrate
up to the completion of growth in October. The final yields are in proportion to the mineral nitrogen
present in the first period and this suggests at once the importance of available nitrogen in the early stages
of the growth of sugar-cane. This view is by no means a new one. It has recently been developed by
Gregory at South Kensington and Rothamsted, who found that barley absorbed 90 per cent of its total
nitrogen when it had made about one-third of its growth. If it is substantiated by further work and found
to apply to all crops it gives a clue to several improvements in soil management.

In our studies in connexion with the intensification of sugar-cane cultivation we have been influenced by
American investigations and methods, more specially those of the workers led by Waksman, who have
studied the decomposition of cellulose and dead organic material in the soil. They have shown that the
structure of the carbonaceous energy material in the soil largely determines the type of decomposition and
the nitrogen transformations. If moisture and temperature conditions are favourable, the decomposition of
cellulosic energy material, the chief constituent of green-manure, is mainly accomplished by fungous
activity resulting in the formation of large quantities of mycelial tissue and the removal of nitrogen
temporarily from the reach of higher plants. The synthesized material is later decomposed by other
micro-organisms forming mineral nitrogen and humic material, and a definite period of time is required to
complete these changes. A large volume of work has been published in the last five years. It explains
much that was obscure regarding the utilization of green-manure in India, particularly the time factor to
which Howard drew attention many years ago.

I now approach the last and most difficult part of my task, to estimate the increased production we may
look for by the application of scientific methods to our agriculture. What I am going to say will be more
readily understood if I give the production of wheat in a few countries for the crop sown in 1926, which
was, on the whole, a good year throughout the world. It is as follows:

United Provinces: Irrigated 12.2 mds. per acre.

United Provinces: Unirrigated 8 .2 mds. per acre

 Canada 13.2 mds. per acre

U.S.A. 10.7 mds. per acre

France 13.0 mds. per acre

Germany 17. 5 mds. per acre

Great Britain 22.5 mds. per acre

Belgium 26.3 mds. per acre

A glance at these figures shows what an immense potential increase of production is open in many
countries, especially in America and India. The physical possibility or perhaps even the limit of
production in the United Provinces is shown by the yield obtained at the Shahjahanpur Research Station.
In 1926 it was 28.8 maunds per acre. In the last eleven years, including two in which the wheat crop was a
partial failure, 243 acres have yielded 5,945 maunds or 24.4 mounds per acre. Soil and climate do not
impose a serious restriction on production. We cannot, however, take one striking instance of large yields
achieved on a small acreage under favourable conditions as the basis of an estimate of the future
production of the country as a whole. The actual level in any country is bound to be behind the ideal, no
matter how well developed educational and propaganda machinery may be.

It is safer, if such a course be possible, to consider average results obtained in countries which have been
compelled to employ intensive methods, but we have no adequate basis of comparison with our
conditions. There is no example of a tropical or semi-tropical country in which scientific have been
applied over a wide area by independent and unsupervised workers.

Sugar-cane cultivation in Java is often quoted as an example of what can be done. It illustrates the
combined effect of strictly supervised labour and scientific methods on about one million acres of land,
carried out with the object of gaining the highest possible interest on Dutch capital. It does not illustrate
what we are aiming at in India -- agricultural improvement initiated and carried through by the people
themselves, as the result of education and uplift, on 300 million acres.

Let us examine the course of events in Europe and America and learn what we can from them.

In medieval England the yield of wheat was seven maunds per acre. When the consolidation of holdings
was completed by the enclosures in about the last quarter of the eighteenth century the yield rose to
fourteen maunds per acre. It remained at this level until 1840 when a further advance was made possible
by the use of better methods and the introduction of nitrogen fertilizers. By 1870 the yield had risen to
twenty maunds per acre.

In America low yields and a growing industrial population are causing uneasiness. By studying
agricultural conditions in other countries the conclusion has been reached that forty-seven per cent
represents a possible all-round increase of production on the present cropped area. Experts do not agree as
to the probable increase in the next few decades. This is placed between the limits of ten and thirty per
cent. These figures are based on considerations of labour. This, as I have said, scarcely enters into our
problem in India. We have more people employed in agriculture per unit of cultivated land than any other
country, with the possible exception of China and Japan.

The improvement of sugar-cane cultivation extends over 2,810,000 acres in eighteen districts in the
United Provinces and gives some indication of the possible course of events. The yield of the unimproved
crop in a year of average character is 350 maunds per acre. We pass through four definite stages of
improvement:

1.​ Better cultivation of the old varieties, yielding 450 maunds per acre.
2.​ The introduction of heavier cropping varieties accompanied by a further improvement in
cultivation, yielding 600 maunds per acre.
3.​ The introduction of some fertilizing agent, such as green-manure, yielding 800 maunds
per acre.
4.​ The intensive cultivation of heavy cropping varieties, yielding 1,000 maunds per acre.

The increase over the normal production is 28, 71, 128 and 185 per cent. The analysis of the
returns is helpful in connexion with our problem. In the more important sugar producing districts
seventy per cent of the sugar-cane area is planted with heavier yielding varieties. In some thirty
per cent, and in a few only two per cent.​
​
2,810,000 acres is almost exactly 33 per cent of the total sugar-cane area in the 18 districts for
which special returns are made; on this area the yield has been slightly more than doubled so that
there is an all-round increase in production of 33 per cent. This has taken 17 years to accomplish
and brings the cultivator in 311 lakhs of rupees extra a year. I believe if such simple
modifications of practice as the use of green-manure crops and composts made from waste
material, were applied to all our arable land, production would be more than doubled; but this
means that every cultivator would be conducting his agricultural operations in a scientific
manner -- a state of affairs not yet reached in any country. The point is that it is not to be
expected. We must allow for the inertia which will retard the general adoption of improvements
in so large a country as India. After giving due weight to this and taking into consideration the
abundance of our labour resources and the extraordinary response of our soil to better treatment,
it is reasonable to believe that within the next two or three decades we may increase the all-round
out-turn of our cropped land by 30 per cent in normal seasons. But I assume that much more
money will be spent on scientific research and extension work in villages than is now spent.​
​
I hope I have said enough to show that soil improvement in India is worth an effort. It requires
generous expenditure from the national exchequer, and there is no better investment for it gives,
to use the words of Huxley, an immediate return of those things which the most sordidly
practical man admits to have value. We are working in times well suited for agricultural
development. Indifference is giving way. There is a stir throughout the countryside. We can call
the movement what we like, but the plain fact is that men are no longer satisfied with a life
which provides only hard work and barely enough to eat. Many things are being suggested, but
they deal more often than not with preliminaries to social well-being and leave untouched the
vital problem of producing more food. In the end the scientific worker will come to the rescue,
and the solution will be reached through the experiment station.

Appendix C

Nitrogen Transformation in the Decomposition of Natural

Organic Materials at Different Stages of Growth
S. A. Waksman and F. G. Tenney, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station,
U.S.A.

(Proceedings and Papers of the first International Congress of Soil Science, Washington, D C,
1927, p. 209.)​
​
To be able to understand the reasons for the rapidity of liberation of nitrogen from the
decomposition of plants at different stages of growth, we must know the composition of the plant
at these various stages and the nature of decomposition of the various plant constituents.
Although the plant continues to assimilate nutrients, including nitrogen, until maturity, the
percentage of nitrogen in the plant reaches a maximum at an early stage, then gradually
diminishes, reaching a minimum at maturity or a little before maturity. This is true not only of
nitrogen but also of certain other elements.​
​
Plant materials decompose more rapidly and the nitrogen is liberated more readily (in the form of
ammonia) at an early stage of growth and less so when the plant is matured. Two causes are to be
considered here: (1) the rapidity of decomposition of the various plant constituents; (2) the
relation of the nitrogen to the carbon content of the plant tissues.​
​
At an early stage of growth, the plant is rich in water-soluble constituents, in protein and is low
in lignins. When the plant approaches maturity, the amount of the first diminishes and of the
second increases. The water-soluble constituents, the proteins and even the pentosans and
celluloses decompose very rapidly provided sufficient nitrogen and minerals are available for the
micro-organisms. The lignins do not decompose at all in a brief period of time of one or two
months. More so, their presence has even an injurious effect upon the decomposition of the
celluloses with which they are combined chemically or physically. The larger the lignin content
of the plant the slower does the plant decompose even when there is present aufficient nitrogen
and minerals.​
​
It has been shown repeatedly that the organisms (fungi and bacteria) decomposing the celluloses
and pentosans require a very definite amount of nitrogen for the synthesis of their protoplasm.
Since the cell substance of living and dead protoplasm always contain a definite, although
varying, amount of nitrogen and since there is a more or less definite ratio between the amount of
cellulose decomposed and cell substance synthesized, depending of course upon the nature of the
organisms and environmental conditions, the ratio between the cellulose decomposed and
nitrogen required by the organisms is also definite. This nitrogen is transformed from an
inorganic into an organic form. Of course in normal soil, in the presence of the complex cell
population, the cell substance soon decomposes, a part of the nitrogen is again liberated as
ammonia and a part remains in the soil and is resistant to rapid decomposition. The amount of
nitrogen which becomes available in the soil is a balance between the nitrogen liberated from the
decomposition of the plant materials and that absorbed by the micro-organisms which
decompose the non-nitrogenous and nitrogenous constituents. The younger the plant, the higher
is its nitrogen content and the more rapidly does it decompose, therefore the greater is the
amount of nitrogen that becomes available. The lower the nitrogen content of the plant the less of
it is liberated and the more of it is assimilated by micro-organisms.​
​
These phenomena can be brought out most clearly when the same plant is examined at different
stages of growth. The rye plant was selected for this purpose. The seeds were planted in the fall.
The samples taken on April 28th (I), May 17th (II), June 2nd (III), and June 30th (IV). In the
third sampling the plants were divided into (a) heads, (b) stems and leaves. The fourth sample
was divided into (a) heads, (b) stems and leaves, (c) roots. The plants were analysed and the
rapidity of their decomposition determined, using sand or soil as a medium and 2 g. of the
organic matter. In the case of sand some inorganic nitrogen and minerals were added and a soil
suspension used for inoculation. The evolution of carbon dioxide and accumulation of ammonia
and nitrate nitrogen was used as an index of decomposition. Tables I and II show the
composition of the plant and the amount of nitrogen made available after 26 days of
decomposition.​

Table I
Composition of Rye Straw at Different Stages of Growth on a Dry Basis

No. of Moisture Ash Nitrogen Cold Pentosans Cellulose Lignin

sample content at water
time of soluble
harvest fraction
 % % % % % % %

I 80.0 7.3 2.39 32.6 15.9 17.2 9.9

II 78.8 5.7 1.76 22.0 20.5 26.1 13.5

IIIa 57.4 4.9 1.01 18.2 22.7 30.6 19.0

IIIb 60.2 5.9 2.20 20.3 22.7 20.1 16.0

IVa 15.0 3.2 1.22 4.7 11.9 4.6 13.4

IVb 15.0 3.7 0.22 9.5 21.7 34.6 18.8

IVc ? ? 0.55 4.7 26.6 37.7 21.0

Table 2
Decomposition of Rye at Different Stages of Growth

(2 g. of dry material added to 100 g. of sand or soil medium)

Date of No. of Nitrogen CO2 given off in 27 days Available Nitrogen

sampling sample content of (NH2-N-NO2-N) absorbed
material Sand Soil (+) or liberated (-)
medium medium

% mg.C. mg.C Sand Soil

medium N. medium N.

April 28 I 2.39 337.7 286.8 +10.1 +22. 2

May 17 II 1.76 280.5 280.4 +0.8 +3.0

June 3 IIIa 1.01 215.7 199.5 -12.1 -7.5

June 3 IIIb 2.20 261.9 244.8 +5.7 +7.5

June 30 IVa 1.22 269.9 273.7 -4.4 -2.1

June 30 IVb 0.22 221.4 187.9 -16.0 -8.9

June 30 IVc 0.55 187.0 158.4 -8.1 -9.4

Root material used in the decomposition was equivalent to 1.67 g. of moisture free and ash-free
organic matter.
When a plant material contains about 1.7 per cent nitrogen, as in the rye of the second sampling, there
seems to be sufficient nitrogen for the growth of micro-organisms which decompose this material more or
less completely. When the plant material contains less than 1.7 per cent of nitrogen, as in the case of the
stems and leaves of the third preparation, additional nitrogen will be required, before the organic matter is
completely decomposed (speaking, of course, relatively, since if a long enough period of time is allowed
for the decomposition, less additional nitrogen will be needed). If the organic material contains more than
I.7 per cent nitrogen, as in the case of the plants in the first planting and the heads of the third sampling, a
part of the nitrogen will be liberated as ammonia, in the decomposition processes. The difference between
the nitrogen content of the heads and this hypothetical figure = 0.5 (2.2 - 1.7) per cent. or 10 mg. nitrogen
for the 2 g. of organic matter; actually 5.7 mg. and 7.5 mg. of nitrogen were liberated as ammonia in the
sand and soil media respectively. The difference between the hypothetical figure and the nitrogen content
of the stems and leaves was 0.69 (1.7 - 1.01) per cent or 13.8 mg. nitrogen for the 2 g. of plant material
used. Actually 12.1 and 7.5 mg. of nitrogen were consumed in the sand and soil media. Had the
decomposition been allowed to proceed further, the results would have approached from both directions
the hypothetical figure and, with prolonged decomposition (of synthesized substances), would have
exceeded it.

The decomposition of 10g. dry portions of the second sampling and 20g. dry portions of the stems and
leaves of the fourth sampling was studied separately in a sand medium containing available nitrogen and
minerals. Only the data for the organic matter portion, insoluble in ether and water, are reported. The
results show that the pentosans and celluloses are rapidly decomposed, while the lignins are affected only
to a very inconsiderable extent. The nitrogen figures are of direct interest here. Just about as much
insoluble protein was left in the first as in the second experiment: in the first the protein is considerably
reduced, in the second increased. This tends to explain the activities of the micro-organisms in the soil.

Table 3
Composition of Organic Matter at Beginning and End of Decomposition

Sample II

Organic matter (free from ether At beginning of experiment At end of experiment

and water-soluble substances
and ash)

mg. mg.

7,465 2,015

Pentosan 2,050 380

Cellulose (calculated) 2,610 610

Lignin 1,180 750

Protein (insoluble in water) 816 253

 Unaccounted for 8.6% 1%

Table 4
Composition of Organic Matter at Beginning and End of Decomposition

Sample IV -- Stems and Leaves

Organic matter present (free At beginning of experiment At end of experiment

from ether and water-soluble
substances and Ash)

mg. mg.

15,114 8,770

Pentosan 3,928 1,553

Cellulose 6,262 2,766

Lignin 3,403 3,019

Protein 181 519

Unaccounted for 10.25% 10.41%

The results show that since there is a very definite ratio between the energy and nitrogen consumption of
the microorganisms decomposing the organic matter, it is easy to calculate, given a certain amount of
plant material and knowing its nitrogen content, whether nitrogen will be liberated in an available form or
additional nitrogen will be required within a given period of time. Calculations can also be made as to
how much of this nitrogen is required for the decomposition of the plant material and how long it may
take before the nitrogen is again made available

Appendix D

An Experiment in the Management of Indian Labour

By Albert Howard, C.I.E.
(International Labour Review, Geneva, 18, 1931, p. 636.)​
​
One of the outstanding problems of the present phase of colonial development in Asia and Africa
is that of the best and most scientific methods for the organization of work in large-scale
agricultural undertakings. The author of this short article, who is a well-known authority on
tropical agriculture and has for thirty years contributed to the scientific improvement of
agriculture in the East as Imperial Economic Botanist at the Government of India Research
Station at Pasa, at Quetta, and latterly in the State of Indore, describes a small-scale experiment
from which many lessons may perhaps be drawn. The experiment has been tried in the State of
Indore under the stimulus of having to obtain an adequate labour force to carry on the work of
an agricultural experimental station in competition with the rival attractions exercised by work
in neighbouring factories. No doubt the conditions are not entirely on all fours with those of
plantations carried on under competitive conditions, but they are sufficiently similar to give the
experiment a living and practical interest. As the author points out, the financial basis is
provided mainly by the cotton industry in India and by the Indian States members of the Institute
of Plant Industry, without any call for assistance by the Government of India or by Provincial
Governments. As the article shows, the best results have been obtained under a scheme which
provides for a six to seven and a half hour working day, paid leave, medical attendance, good
housing, and opportunity for promotion for the labour employed. [Ed. International Labour
Review]​
​
The foundation of the new Institute of Plant Industry at Indore in Central India in October 1924,
provided the opportunity of breaking new ground in at least four directions, namely:

1.​ The best method of applying science to crop production. (This aspect has been dealt with
in The Application of Science to Crop Production, an Exp[eriment carried out at the
Institute of Plant Industry, Indore, Oxford University Press, 1929.)
2.​ The general organization and finance (including audit) of an agricultural experiment
station.
3.​ The most effective way of getting the results taken up by the people; and
4.​ The management of the labour force employed.

The present article deals with the last of these items: with the methods by which a contented and
efficient body of labour can be maintained for the day to day work of an agricultural experiment
station, largely devoted to the production of raw cotton.

The Institute and its Organization

The Institute of Plant Industry at Indore is supported by an annual grant of Rs. 1,15,000 from the
Indian Central Cotton Committee and by subscriptions, amounting at the moment to Rs. 47,550 a
year, from twenty of the States of Central India and Rajputana. (In addition to these sources, the
Institute makes use of the produce of the experimental area of 300 acres, of the royalties on its
publications and of a number of miscellaneous items of income, including the fees earned for
advice to individuals and bodies outside the Society.) During the financial year 1929-1930, the
income from all sources was Rs. 1,79,080, the expenditure was Rs. 1,75,041. The management
of the Institute is vested in a Board of Governors, seven in number, elected by the subscribers,
the Director of the Institute being Secretary of the Board. It will be seen that the main source of
the funds available for the payment of labour is derived from the Indian Central Cotton
Committee (a statutory body representing the growers, the cotton trade and the officers engaged
in research on cotton) created for implementing the Indian Cotton Cess Act of 1923: an Act
which provides for the creation of a fund for the improvement and development of the growing,
marketing and manufacture of raw cotton in India. This cess is now levied at the rate of two
annas per standard bale of 400 lb. on all cotton used in the Indian mills or exported from the
country. The money available for the payment of labour at the Indore Institute is thus largely
drawn from the cotton industry itself. At no period in the history of the institution has any
financial assistance of any kind been asked for or obtained from the Government of India or from
any of the Provincial Governments.​
​
At the beginning, great difficulties were experienced in obtaining an efficient labour force. The
Institute lies alongside the city of Indore, an important manufacturing and distributing centre
with a population of 127,000. Nine large cotton mills (with 177,430 spindles, 5,224 looms, an
invested capital of Rs. 1,67,97,1O6, and utilizing 68,000 bales of cotton a year) find work for
12,000 workers. In addition there are a number of ginning factories and cotton presses. The
Institute therefore had to meet a good deal of local competition in building up its labour force. It
was dearly useless attempting to recruit workers at rates below those readily obtained at the mills
or in the city. Further, it soon became apparent that if the Institute was to succeed the Director
would have to pay attention to the labour problem and devise means by which an efficient and
contented body of men, women and children could be attracted and retained for reasonable
periods.​
​
Consideration of this problem led the Director to the conclusion that it could be solved by
providing for the regular and effective payment of wages, for good housing, reasonable hours of
work, with regular and sufficient periods of rest, and for suitable medical attention.​
​
The application of these principles soon met with success. An adequate labour force has been
built up, partly from men recruited locally and from the Rajputana States and partly from the
wives and children of the sepoys of the Malwa Bhil Corps, the lines of which adjoin the Institute.
A permanent labour force of about 118 is now employed throughout the year. In addition, a
certain amount of temporary labour is employed for seasonal work.​
​
The precise manner in which the principles above mentioned have been carried out in practice
may now be described.

Conditions of Labour at the Institute

Payment of Labour​
​
Wage rates for men on the permanent staff range from about Rs. 12 to Rs. 20 a month, while men
on the temporary staff are paid 7 annas a day, women 5 annas, boys 3 to 6 annas, and girls 3 to 5
annas. After the rate of wages has been settled in each case, care is taken that: (1) the payment of
wages is made at regular intervals; and (2) the wages are paid into the hands of the workers
themselves and there are no illicit deductions on the part of the men who disburse the money.​
​
Regularity of payment is a matter of very great importance in dealing with Indian labour. At
Indore, workers on daily rates receive their wages twice a month -- on the 18th and the 3rd, in
each case at 2:30 p.m. The permanent labour is paid monthly on the third working day of the
following month. To ensure that all payments are actually made according to the attendance
registers all disbursements are made in the presence of two responsible members of the staff.
Both of these men have to sign a statutory declaration that the payments have actually been
made. The signed statements come regularly before the Director for signature, and are in due
course placed before the auditors. In making payments the envelope system is used, the payee
making a thumb impression in ink in the register or signing his or her name. These arrangements
have been found to prevent any illicit deductions on the part of the staff. The payments are made
in public; the rate of everybody's pay is known; the signing of a proper declaration in the register
makes it possible to institute criminal proceedings at once for any irregularity; the Director is
always available for inquiring into any complaints. That none have ever been made proves that
the labourers actually receive their pay in full at regular intervals. Payment is made in coin; no
attempt at payment in kind has ever been made; no shops for the sale of food exist on the estate
and nothing whatever is done to influence the workers as to how they should spend their wages.​
​
Hours of Labour​
​
After the regular payment of wages, the hours of labour come next in importance. Indeed in India
rest and wages are to a certain extent interchangeable as the workers regard any extra rest as
equivalent to an increase in pay. At first, the Institute observed the ten hours' day so common in
India, but this was soon given up. It was found during the hot months of April, May and June
that both the labour and the cattle required more protection from the hot sun. An experiment was
therefore made to reduce the hours of labour during the hot months to six daily, beginning work
at sunrise and ending the day at sunset. The actual working hours of the three hot months were
arranged in two shifts -- four hours in the morning and two in the afternoon with a six hours' rest
during the heat of the day, i.e. from I0 a.m. to 4 p.m. At the same time the work was speeded up
and both labour and supervising staff were given to understand that the six hours' day in the hot
months could only be enjoyed if everybody worked continuously and conscientiously.​
​
The first result observed was a marked improvement in the health and well-being of the men and
animals, probably due to the operation of two factors: the health-giving properties of the early
morning air and avoidance of excessive sunlight. With the improvement in general health there
was a corresponding reduction in cases requiring medical assistance. To everyone's surprise, it
was found possible to speed up the work very considerably. The experiment of shortening the
hours of labour was then extended to the rest of the year; working hours were reduced from ten
to seven and a half.​
​
These working periods, six hours in the hot weather and seven and a half during the rest of the
year, refer to the time actually at work; an extra half hour daily is spent in travelling to and from
the place of work. In no case does the working period exceed seven and a half hours except for
about a week at the sowing time of the monsoon crops. During this period, both man and beast
do not obtain much more than two hours off duty for food during the hours of daylight. A full ten
hours' day at high pressure is then the rule, as all realize that the sowing of cotton and other crops
is a race against time. As soon, however, as sowing is over, the workers enjoy an extra day's rest
on full pay. The sowing of the monsoon crops is the only agricultural operation in Central India
for which anything more than a seven and a half hours' day is necessary.​
​
For three years the agricultural operations of the Institute have been conducted on the short hours
system. The result has been successful beyond all expectation. The miracle of speeding up Indian
labour has been achieved and shorter working hours have led not only to contentment but also to
an increased output of work. This result has only been achieved, however, by careful and
detailed planning of the work to be done each day. The daily work programme is drawn up by
the Assistant in charge of the farm during the previous afternoon and submitted to the Director as
a matter of routine, so that at daybreak each day the Assistant knows at once what has to be done
and no time is lost in deciding what tasks have to be performed. The taking of the attendance and
the allocation of labour to the various tasks occupies less than five minutes. In less than ten
minutes after assembly, the various gangs are at work in the fields. A great point is made of
getting down to the job at once. Punctuality is now the rule, and it is becoming rare to have to
deal with late arrivals.​
​
While it is important to start work with the sun, it is equally important to allow the labourers to
reach their homes by sundown, particularly during the rains when snakes abound. Indian workers
like to reach home in daylight -- a point of great importance in obtaining their willing
co-operation. Finally, it is very interesting to note that the policy of the square deal on the part of
the Institute towards its labourers as regards hours is now being answered by a natural desire on
the part of the workers to give the Institute a square deal. Less supervision is becoming
necessary; everybody realizes that a reduction in hours is only possible if real work is done.​
​
Leave and Holidays​
​
The Institute is closed, except for work of extreme urgency, on Sundays and on twelve important
festivals during the year. In addition to these sixty-four days, the permanent labourers are
allowed one day's casual leave and one day's sick leave every month provided they work
twenty-five full days during the month. In cases of injury while on duty, they are allowed full
pay up to a maximum of seven days. In the case of temporary labour, all holidays and leave,
except the extra day allowed after the sowing of the monsoon crops, are given without pay.​
​
Housing​
​
As regards living accommodation, the demands of Indian labour are very modest. A roof which
does not leak during the rains, a dry earthen floor, a room which can be locked up, a partially
closed-in verandah which serves both as a kitchen and a store house for firewood, are all that is
expected. At Indore the one-room cottages are arranged in blocks of six around an open
courtyard in which four trees have been planted to provide shade. The quarters are fumigated and
whitewashed once a year when any petty repairs to the roofs and brickwork are attended to.​
​
After a storm-proof room, the next essential is a supply of good drinking water and a separate
well for washing. The water used for drinking is raised by a simple wheel pump; the well is
provided with a masonry coping about two feet high; no drinking vessels are allowed to be
dipped into the water. In this way the risk of cholera is greatly reduced. Once a simple wheel
pump is installed, the labourers and their wives never attempt to lower a bucket by means of a
rope.​
​
Provident Fund​
​
So far no provident fund for the workers has been instituted. The existing provident fund only
applies to the permanent staff of the Institute drawing Rs. 30 per month or more. Till the
completest confidence between the workers and the management has been achieved, any
suggestion of keeping back the pay of a labourer for a provident fund is likely to be
misunderstood. It was decided to start a provident fund for the educated staff and gradually to
extend its benefits to the labour force if and when a demand comes from the workers themselves.​
​
Medical Arrangements​
​
The workers and staff employed at the Institute obtain free medical attendance. In addition, the
workers and the staff drawing less than Rs. 30 per month obtain free medicaments. The workers
are examined weekly by the doctor so that any precautionary treatment or any advice can be
given in good time. In cases of childbirth the services of a nurse are provided free of charge. The
personality of the Sub-Assistant Surgeon dealing with Indian labour is very important. The
workers deal with an unpopular man in a very effective fashion -- they never make use of his
services.​
​
Certificates and Promotion​
​
An experimental station, like any employer of labour, needs some system by which the labour
force can automatically renew its youth. The annual export of trained labour to centres at which
improvements are being taken up is one of the important functions of the Institute. For these
reasons, therefore, a supply of promising recruits must be arranged. To bring this about some
system of promotion for proved efficiency had to be devised. At first this took the form of an
annual promotion examination for the ploughmen. As they increased in efficiency and could
manage and assemble their implements and also plough a straight furrow, their pay was
increased by Re. I per month. This system is now being superseded by the certificate plan. All
the permanent workers in the Institute are eligible for special training so that they can earn
efficiency certificates for such operations as: (1) cultivation and sowing; (2) compost making and
the care of the work cattle; (3) improved irrigation methods, including the cultivation of
sugar-cane by the Java method; (4) the manufacture of sugar (Plate XIV). A certificate of
efficiency (with suitable illustrations) signed by the Director can be awarded for proficiency in
all these items. Each certificate which is awarded annually will carry with it an increase of Rs. 1
per month on the basic pay. When a member of the labour force has gained all four certificates,
he will become eligible for transfer to other centres on higher pay. In this way the Institute holds
out hope and places it within the power of any man to increase his starting pay in four years by
about thirty per cent. It also enables an ambitious labourer to save enough money in a few years
to purchase a holding and to become a cultivator. This is now taking place. Every year a few of
the labourers return to their villages with their savings to take up a holding on heir own account.
Others are deputed for work in the Contributing States on increased pay. The vacancies are
automatically taken either by younger members of the same family or by volunteers on the
waiting list of temporary workers.​
 Plate XIV. Certificate of Efficiency for the making of Compost

Conclusion

It is possible that the system described in this article is only fully realizable on a farm working
under model conditions. Nevertheless, there are a certain number of elements in this experiment
which the writer feels are of universal validity in dealing with primitive labour. From the point of
view of the worker it is perhaps most essential that he should feel that he is receiving a square
deal. From the point of view of the management the best results are obtained by scrupulous
attention to pay, by short hours of intensive work, by proper housing and medical care, and by
interesting the worker in the undertaking through giving his work an educational value