196 



price of the Indian staple, and that the yield per 

 acre is infinitely greater, the importance of the 

 effort to introduce it into India will, it is believed, 

 be more generally understood." 



It has been mentioned that the early attempts to 

 introduce this variety of rice into India did not offer 

 great encouragement to Government, but I am glad 

 to observe that the attempts have not been entirely 

 abandoned, and that fresh seed for further experiments 

 has been sent out from time to time by Her Majesty 's 

 Secretary of State for India. The last consignment 

 of nearly 200 barrels arrived here in March 1873 ; 

 but no portion of it has, to my knowledge, been 

 reserved for distribution in this Presidency, and I 

 was sorry to learn that the Bombay Government 

 had concluded that it would be useless to proceed 

 with the experiments on account of the discouraging 

 reports received. 



This conclusion is greatly to be regretted; for, 

 considering that the unsuccessful experiments were 

 not only conducted in a palpably unsystematic and 

 careless manner, but that the seed was bad, the 

 season unfavorable, and the plant subjected to 

 a mode of cultivation totally different to what it 

 was accustomed to, no satisfactory results could have 

 been reasonably expected, but, on the contrary, 

 there was every reason to anticipate failure. 



Most of the attempts made in Khandeish, inclu- 

 ding those conducted under the superintendence of 



