BAZAAR PRICES 229 



rains of one year failing cause a scarcity in both the 

 autumn and spring crops ; it therefore happens that 

 in March and April — that is, immediately after the 

 harvest — wheat, barley, and gram sell at famine prices. 

 But if in July and afterwards the next monsoon brings 

 seasonable rain, there may be an abundant autumn 

 harvest, and in September and October maize, juar, 

 and bajra will again be selling at low prices. This 

 necessarily brings down the price of other food- 

 grains. People on the margin of doubt whether to 

 eat wheat or not are tempted by their cheapness to 

 adopt for a while the coarser autumn (kharif) grains, 

 and the poor use the less valuable grains indiscrimi- 

 nately as substitutes for each other. The people who 

 had hitherto eaten barley and gram betake themselves 

 to juar, bajra, and maize as soon as these become the 

 cheaper ; in this way a plentiful autumn harvest 

 diminishes the demand for the spring irabi) grains, 

 and the baniya may thus fail to realize the price he 

 paid the cultivator for his stores of wheat, barley, and 

 gram. 



There is, it must be remembered, one exception to 

 the general improvement of the market in which the 

 cultivator disposes of his goods. The poor wretch 

 who is in the grip of the baniya {i.e., the grain-dealer 

 and money-lender) does not realize for his produce 

 even the current harvest rates, but is obliged to dis- 

 pose of it upon whatever terms the dealer dictates ; 

 but the money-lender's profit from the debtor who 

 has become his serf is made up of such a tangle of 

 extortionate interest, false entries with regard to 

 capital debt, and unfair estimates of the value of the 

 grain repaid by the cultivator, that it is a needless 

 refinement to attempt to estimate the price for which 

 he gives his debtor credit. In Azamgarh, according 

 to Mr. J. R. Reid (Settlement Report, 1881), the 

 mahajan (money-lender) values the sugar produce of 

 his constituents at 5 to 10 per cent, below the price in 



