CEREALS 83 



about the safety point in wheat. It is suggested by some 

 merchants that since drying involves loss of weight it 

 would not pay. But all users of grain will pay for 

 assured dryness, not only because of the greater security 

 of their stock, but because it gives them a potential gain 

 of weight during the conduct of their industrial processes. 

 All that is necessary is that they should be sure that they 

 will get dry grain, and I understand that this consideration 

 is the basis of the new terms of business in respect of 

 maize shipments. Another example is afforded by the 

 description of Indian rape seed called toria. Up to two- 

 years ago toria stood at a heavy discount as compared 

 with what was called ''brown Cawnpore." It now 

 commands a premium, and it is asserted by some shippers 

 that this fact is not entirely, but to a considerable extent 

 due to the more thorough drying instituted after very 

 heavy losses had been made as a result of damp in 1911. 



I have already said that I aim in this paper not at 

 imparting statistics, which can be better mastered by 

 eye, but at giving you some idea of the magnitude, the 

 characteristics, and" the main problems of the several 

 grain trades. I take rice first, as it is by far the greatest. 



The rice crop of British India alone occupies 123,017 

 square miles, whereas the entire area of the United 

 Kingdom, including all its waste spaces, is only 121,142 

 square miles. 



The average out-turn is about 29,488,000 tons. I 

 confess that the figure conveyed very little to me even 

 when I adopted the expedients of the popular magazine, 

 and told myself that to transport this quantity I should 

 have to employ more than 29,000 trains, each consisting 

 of fifty 20-ton wagons, or a fleet of 4,900 large steamers. 

 But I began to understand when I visited Burma in the 

 height of its rice season. Then I travelled day after day 

 through countries clothed with a mantle of rice which 

 reached to the horizon on every side. All the land was 

 alive with little people reaping, carrying, moving to and 

 fro like ants on festival; and the landscape twinkled 

 continually with a myriad golden jets of chaff and grain 

 thrown into the air for winnowing. The whole landscape 

 rustled and flickered with rice. By paths and roads the 



