[403] Ryots (a corruption of the word ra'iyat) are the husbandmen in India; the tillers of the soil who rent small parcels of land from the government, through the medium of the zamin-dar, who is a servant of government and not the proprietor of the land, as some have erroneously supposed.

Clearly there is a pressing need of scientific agriculture, to replace or supplement the rule-of-thumb methods in which the ryot is a past master.