The Gospel and the Plow, Or, the Old Gospel and Modern Farming in Ancient India (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ...single means. During the normal rains in India enormous quantities of fodder grasses grow, both cultivated and wild. If at this time earthen silo pits could be dug and filled with these grasses it would keep for years. These pits would be a fodder bank. If when the time of scarcity came this fodder bank could be drawn upon, millions of cattle that are now lost could be saved. Here again ignorance and illiteracy have stood in the way of such a simple and obvious reform as this. Furthermore in these silo pits a great deal of vegetation which the cattle will not eat normally can be turned into succulent fodder. The students of the Allahabad Agricultural Institute counted and named twenty-two weeds which the cattle would not eat green which were put into the farm silo pit, and at the end of two months were fed to the cattle and the dairy herd increased in milk production. In the Old Testament a truly delectable land is described as "A land flowing with milk and honey." Modern India has the same conception of physical and material blessedness. Yet as one gets to know India and sees its multitudes of cattle, one is struck by the great difficulty of getting reasonably pure milk. Dr. H. H. Mann of Poona, Mr. Carruth of Madras, Dr. Joshi of Bombay, Major Matson of Calcutta have all investigated city milk supplies in India and each speak of the very few samples of milk taken from the milk sellers that were pure, most of them adulterated from twenty to seventy-five per cent. with water. Now if the water with which the milk was adulterated were only pure water not so much harm would result, but often the water used to adulterate the milk is unclean. It is likely to be contaminated with sewage and is very dangerous to health. Many serious attacks of...