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on the roadside or on the side of a tank in the mon-
soon and on the boundaries of fields or on the creepers
that cover the fences of the fields in winter and summer.
It may be noted that more than maintaining them for
the purpose of getting milk the Kaliparaj keep them to
serve as sources of meat on festivals.
(iv) If we look to the capacity of the Kaliparaj to
maintain cattle it becomes obvious that they keep too
many, but if we look to their requirements they seem to
fall short of the necessary number.
Inadequacy of cattle : An analysis of the actual figures
of cattle and the number of families possessing them
shows the following two facts : (i) out of 461 families,
302 (or 65.5 per cent.) possess among them 616 work-
ing animals; and (ii) only 270 (or 55.5 per cent,) possess
among them 524 milking cattle. It is evident that, roughly
speaking, though there is a pair of working cattle and
a pair of milking cattle per family of those who own them,
for the village as a whole both classes of cattle are inade-
quate.
(2) The qualitative aspect.
The main problems we propose to consider under this
head are (i) the breed and (ii) the health of cattle.
(i) The breed : Most of the cattle found in this village
are of what is locally known as the Talabda breed. This
breed is different from the other which is known as Kan-
khrej and which we mostly come across in the north of the
Surat District and the whole of northern Gujarat. The
native breed seems to be inferior to the Kankhrej one.
It appears that some of the people of this village have
realised this difference and have, therefore, imported for
experimentation a breeding bull from the Athwa Agri-
cultural Farm. This was done only last year and it is
too early for us to pronounce any judgment on the re-
sults of this experiment in cross-breeding. One thing,
however, is noteworthy. It is that many intelligent
Ujaliparaj and Kaliparaj farmers have already availed
17*