CEREALS 91 



but since the area under these two crops is very great, 

 amounting to 42,551,000 acres, or 66,500 square miles, the 

 -exports probably represent less than 0*3 per cent, of the 

 production. The area under these two crops, whose very 

 existence is scarcely recognized outside of India, is 

 considerably greater than one-third of all Spain, or more 

 than half of the United Kingdom, is greater by 23,700 

 square miles than the area under wheat, and largely 

 exceeds one half of the Indian rice acreage. 



But in some ways the most impressive food-grain areas 

 we see in India are those where irrigation assures the 

 crops. The total irrigated area runs to some 44,460,000 

 acres, or getting on for 70,000 square miles, which is 

 much more than one-third of all Spain. Under irrigated 

 food-grains and pulses alone there are some 33,787,000 

 acres, or 52,800 square miles. There are in this world 

 few spectacles more striking than that presented by some 

 great irrigation " colony " which a few years ago was 

 a desert garnished only by thorn bushes and a few 

 emaciated camels. Now one steams for hours across a 

 country that in the cold weather spreads to the circular 

 horizon in a sea of green splashed with the gamboge of 

 mustard in flower, or later on ripples, as ;far as the eye 

 can reach, with tawny oil seed crops and ripening grain, 

 while the Himalayan snows peer and shimmer through 

 the haze. In Burma in the rice season, or in Eastern 

 Bengal when the jute is up, one may see a stretch as 

 wide and homogeneous. But in Burma or Bengal the 

 scenery is broken by masses of giant trees, whereas here, 

 in the Punjab colonies, one can mark the progress of 

 the saplings year by year and almost month by month 

 as they break up across the horizon. When the wheat 

 crop comes to harvest here, as in Burma, the whole land 

 rustles with golden grain and chaff and straw; and as 

 the boats pour down the waterways of the Burmese delta, 

 so the lumbering Punjab carts with their teams of ante- 

 diluvian buffaloes plough through the ruts of the dusty 

 tracks, while goods trains hurry the wheat to the coast 

 and crowded passenger trains bring over larger hordes 

 of labourers, with their families and household goods, 

 drawn from other districts by the high harvest wages. 



