The editor of a prominent India paper says: “The direct effect of unduly low rents is careless husbandry. Instead of benefiting the cultivator, such rents are a mere incentive to idleness.” What a sapient conclusion! His publishers should have immediately cut down his wages so that they might not be an incentive to his idleness. This reminds me of a bunya who sold cloth, traveling from one bazar to another. He purchased a fine, stout pony to carry his goods. The beast was so fat that he diminished its food, and as it traveled so well, he increased its load. He continued to do both, until the poor brute, of its own accord, discontinued eating and going, and the man wondered what gave it such an incentive to idleness. But he had not the wisdom of the editor. An expert sent out by Government says in his report, “Until a more adequate collection of statistics is made nothing can be done for agriculture!” I might use some very harsh words, if I should relieve my mind by using epithets regarding such twaddle, so I refrain. Yet I cannot forbear saying that one of the things for which I have an unsurmountable contempt is an educated fool. Referring to these Government learned scientific investigators recalls to me an incident. One of my neighbors went on furlough. He had several valuable horses, which he left in the care of his sais. They were large, strong-limbed, well-proportioned animals. But something seemed to be the matter with them. They became thinner and thinner and drooped, standing for hours with their heads down and their legs scarcely supporting their bodies. Some of the neighbors happened around in the mornings and formed a kind of committee of investigation, as they did not like to see such fine animals go to the dogs and vultures, and beside, they had some regard for the interests of their friend. At length they decided to send for a distinguished veterinary surgeon, several hundred miles away. One suggested that this would be expensive. Others blanked the expense; they couldn’t let the horses die. The vet came, took a general look at the beasts and stood silently as if meditating where to begin. At last he spoke, “Gentlemen, this is a very serious matter, very strange; never saw anything like it in an experience of forty years. Yes, gentlemen, in forty years. Here are young, fine, well built animals slowly dying by inches, and yet apparently without disease. I will have to investigate, and it will be some days before I can make a report.” The days went on, and the vet stayed on, at a salary of fifty rupees a day to somebody. The weeks passed, and notwithstanding the vet’s investigation and long report, the horses grew thinner, and then the poor brutes went to death for want of breath, or, to be explicit, they died because they hadn’t strength enough to breathe, and not because they were sick or diseased. The vultures sang requiems over their bones, and said, “It was a strange