CEREALS 73 



in granaries of wood and matting, or of beam and plaster, 

 or of corrugated iron, raised on piles above the damp 

 ground. Wheat is stored either in granaries of rough 

 brickwork or sun-baked mud, or in receptacles of wattle- 

 and-daub, or it is buried in pits. The granaries are 

 usually on ground level, with an earthen floor slightly 

 raised. In other words, the storage is about as rough 

 as it can be; and when regard is had to the torrential 

 character of the rains that in many tracts set in not long 

 after harvest, and to the attendant high humidity, it is 

 not surprising that the damage to grain so held is great. 

 In India all forms of life grow rankly, and a heavy toll 

 is levied on stored grain by insects, rats, thieves, mildew, 

 heating and other agents of decomposition. 



These enemies are common to all grain, and any sale- 

 able surplus of India's principal export grains (namely, 

 rice and wheat) is rushed out of the country and dumped 

 on the foreign markets with reckless disregard of the 

 usual consequences of a glut. Not only does this system 

 compel the cultivator to accept, up to the limit of his 

 immediate cash requirements, any price that the exporter 

 may offer him, but the absence of storage determines 

 such a spate of shipment when the crop is good that the 

 exporter's prices are forced lower than they need be. 



I present two charts (pp. 74, 75) that show the effect of 

 the system in respect of rice and of wheat. The one with 

 the most marked peak relates to Burma rice (Chart I) ; that 

 with the flattened peak relates to Indian wheat (Chart II). 

 The Burma season for the export of new-crop rice begins 

 in January, while the Karachi season for the export of 

 wheat begins in April. The charts, therefore, start 

 respectively with January and with April. Both repre- 

 sent the averages of a series of years, and they present 

 data in percentages of the mean. The equator or 100 

 represents the mean monthly figure for the whole period; 

 and the curve shows in percentages how far the figure 

 for each successive month usually exceeds or falls short 

 of that mean. The solid line represent the exports; the 

 dotted line represents the prices at the ports. These 

 charts repay exhaustive study, and have indeed disposed 

 of the most time-honoured legend about the India export 

 grain trade. 



