took to living very largely on foods which they had formerly 

 looked upon as mere accessories to their dietary. It was 

 noticed, for instance, that where rice, wheat and barley had 

 failed completely, arahar, kalai^ gram, maize and some of 

 the common millets did fairly well, and yams, sweet potatoes, 

 vegetables such as palvals, sajna and dumbur and mash- 

 melons and sweet melons did remarkably well. During this 

 last famine these articles of food were largely used as a sub- 

 stitute for rice. Throughout June, 1897, m ^ny day-labourers 

 ate only mash-melons in day time and a little rice at night. 

 A pice worth of melons or palvals gave them a full day's meal 

 at a time when two annas worth of rice was required to ap- 

 pease a man's hunger. It is singular that the prices -of such 

 articles as milk, fish &c., did not increase and that food far 

 more nourishing than rice, consisting of palval, kalai, dumbur, 

 fish and sour milk was to be had at a smaller cost than rice. 

 The famine indeed had the effect of educating people how not 

 to depend on rice alone for sustenance and teaching agricul- 

 turists the value of having several strings to their bow, i. e., of 

 growing not rice alone but also maize, millets, bhadoi kalai, 

 arahar, ot, and other crops ordinarily less paying than rice 

 but which do not require the same amount of water for their 

 successful growth and which do not fail when there is a mon- 

 soon of short duration. 



747. The food stuffs mentioned above, labour under one 

 or other of the four disadvantages : First, they either yield 

 too Jittle produce) or secondly they are too indigestible, or 

 thirdly, they are too coarse or insipid, or, fourthly they do not 

 keep long. The Cassava (called Simulalu in Eastern Bengal 

 and Sarkar-kanda in Midnapur), stands drought at least as 

 as well as any of those crops, it grows equally well in open 

 or in shade, it yields a nourishing and palatable food, which 

 can be utilized either in the fresh state, or by extracting out 

 of it a flour which keeps much better than wheat-flour, it yields 

 a much larger quantity of dry food per acre than probably 



