66 CEREALS 



a part of this year's crop with the whole of last year's 

 would be either meaningless or misleading. 



The crop areas and out-turns are verified and adjusted 

 subsequently, and the corrected figures appear in the 

 volume of Agricultural Statistics. These, however, 

 appear too late to be of any use as a guide in the 

 marketing of the crops. 



In any case, the prime crops referred to form the 

 subject of special care on the part of the statistician; but 

 even as regards them his task is complicated by the fact 

 that in one part of the country the harvest may be 

 complete and a rotation crop may already be in the 

 ground before, in another part of the country, the reap- 

 ing has even begun. Some idea of the extent of this 

 multiple cropping may be gathered from the following- 

 figures. The total area of land cropped in India (in- 

 cluding Native States so far as reported) is about 390,000 

 square miles, each containing 640 acres, but the total 

 area of the crops grown on that land is about 444,000 

 isquare miles. In other words, the area of the crops is 

 greater by some 14 per cent, than the area of the 

 land that produces them, though we must, of course, 

 remember the fallows in rotation. 



If we examine the food-grain areas we find that they 

 amount to about 351,000 square miles. And much of 

 the land that bears a food-grain crop at one season bears 

 jute, cotton, or oil seeds at another .season. 



Before I proceed to analyse these figures in any way 

 I must try to give some concrete idea of their magnitude. 

 So greatly do the areas exceed the widest stretch of 

 country that we have ever seen that the figures remain 

 nothing but an arithmetical expression. I propose, 

 therefore, to compare them with something of which we 

 have acquired a visual impression, even if it be only a 

 relative one derived from a map. Great Britain is bad 

 for this purpose, for its straggling form and indented 

 coast prevent us from conceiving what its dimensions 

 would be if it were compact and rectilinear. But Spain 

 stands out well as a unit on a map, so I will compare 

 Indian agricultural areas with the total superficies of 

 Spain as you see it on the map that is to say, including 



