4 CKITEKION OF PKOGEESS 



per acre is a matter of great importance, and any 

 steady increase in this outturn would afford strong 

 evidence of agricultural progress. Unfortunately the 

 average produce per acre is a very difficult thing to 

 measure accurately in a country which presents, side 

 by side, farming of such varying degrees of excellence, 

 and where the quantity and distribution of the rain- 

 fall is so capricious as to cause from year to year 

 enormous fluctuations of outturn which must largely 

 conceal any average increase in gross production that 

 may be taking place. The figures of particular 

 crop tests or observations spread over a short period 

 are open to the criticism that they are based on par- 

 ticular instances of soil, skill or season, and are not 

 evidence of any general tendency. General statistics 

 of crop outturns for a sufficiently long period ought 

 to give valuable indications, and in countries where 

 the great bulk of the produce is brought to markets 

 in which its amount and value are recorded, such 

 figures do afford useful evidence. In western India 

 trade movements give indications in the case of the 

 export crops, such as cotton and oil seeds ; but the 

 staple crops of jowari, bajri, wheat and rice are for 

 the most part consumed locally. To some extent 

 they move, no doubt, but by routes and to local 

 markets which afford no statistics. The Bombay 

 Presidency roughly consumes as much wheat as it 

 grows, and imports large quantities of jowari, bajri 

 and rice for local consumption, while it exports over- 

 seas cotton and oilseeds. The average net figures of 



