AGRICULTURE AND IRRIGATION

MANURES

Manures add to the fertility of the soil. The non-appliance of manures results in the low return of agricultural products. With the minimum required supply of water, and other things being equal manures necessarily increase the agricultural productivity during the same year in which they are applied. They are indispensable for the present agricultural development programme. The scientific application of the manures and especially that of the chemical fertilisers mainly depends upon the concretions, consistency, structure and the texture of the land and also upon the availability of water-supply.

The application of manures in the district is still not widely and sufficiently followed by the cultivators. Most of the lands arc culti-vated without applying manures even though the farmers have since long realised the utility of manuring the fields. They have all the same been unable to act upon it due to the scarcity of indigenous manures on the one hand and the prohibitive cost of chemical fertilisers on the other. Whatever fields in the district are manured they are manured with cattle-dung, dung of the sheep and goats, farm refuse, etc. Another method of applying the manures is by folding sheep and goats when the flocks of professional graziers pass through the fields. They are paid either in cash or in kind.

Now-a-days cattle-dung, village and farm refuse is converted into compost manue. For this a pit of the size 3.048 X 1.829 X 0.914 metres (10' X 6' X 3') is dug and filled systematically with the above material. The contents are allowed to decompose for about a year. This compost manure has proved more effective in improving the fertility of the soil which lasts longer than that increased by the chemical fertilisers. Of the various schemes undertaken by the Zilla Parishad to increase the quantity of manures in the district, the scheme of preparing compost manure is of unique importance. Green manuring is also practised in few parts of the district by sowing the tag seeds in June and burying their vegetative growth in the field, by means of a hoe. This adds to the nitrogen contents of the soil. The other manures include the chemical fertilisers such as ammonium sulphate, calcium, ammonium nitrate, urea and nitro phosphates. The Dhulia District Central Co-operative Sale-Purchase Union carries on the work of distributing the chemical fertilisers on a wholesale scale as a consignee of the government. The fertilisers are distributed to various co-operative societies which in turn distribute the same to their cultivator share-holders. The number of such co-operative societies in different talukas of the district is given below:-

The quantity [The figures are in metric Tonnes.] of nitrogenous fertilisers distributed in the district during 1964-65 and 1965-66 was as under:-

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