KICB, 



321 



In India generally, it has been said, rice is produced in every 

 variety of soil, at every altitude, and in every latitude. On an average 

 estimate the yield of one acre of rice in the fertile soil of Eastern 

 Bengal has been taken to be about 27 maunds of paddy, or 2,214 lbs. 

 Eather less than 2 maunds or about 160 lbs. would be the amount of 

 seed required in those provinces for sowing an acre ; and the produce 

 may, therefore, be estimated at thirteen or fourteen-fold. This is 

 rather an over-estimate for ordinary Bengal produce. Twenty maunds 

 of paddy or say 12 maunds of rice per acre is really a very good 

 average out-turn, and a yield of seven- fold is an average beyond which 

 few cultivators on an ordinary soil venture to calculate. In the 

 North- West Provinces the average yield of rice is reported to be little 

 over 10 or 12 maunds of paddy per acre, or from 500 lbs. to 800 lbs. 

 of cleaned rice. In the Punjaub the out-turn is estimated at 550 lbs. ; 

 in Oudh at 649 lbs., in the Central Provinces at 207 lbs., and in 

 Mysore at 1577 lbs. of rice per acre. It is presumed that these calcu- 

 lations are in cleaned rice, as it is impossible to suppose that there 

 can be so small a yield as this of paddy or rice unhusked. The 

 Mysore estimate, however, is apparently in paddy. In Mr. Dalzell's 

 ' Memoir on the Famine of 1866,' it is asserted that the Eevenue 

 Settlement Department of Madras, after inquiries and experiments, 

 extending over ten years, had estimated that an acre of unirrigated 

 land in the Madras Presidency produces on the average a yield of 

 about 5 cwts. or 560 lbs., and that an acre of irrigated land produces 

 10 cwts. or 1120 lbs. of cleaned rice. The yield of paddy is said to 

 be double the yield of cleaned rice. In Sindh the out-turn of an acre 

 is estimated at from 900 to 1200 lbs. of paddy. 



In British Burmah it is reported that one acre will produce from 

 fifty to one hundred baskets, or 2700 to 5400 lbs. of paddy, according 

 to the class of land. On the best land somewhat less than one basket 

 (54 lbs.) of paddy will plant an acre, while on inferior land it takes 

 more. The yield of paddy in British Burmah is, therefore, from fifty 

 to a hundred-fold. The average on the Tenasserim coast is said to 

 be only twenty-fold. In Siam, Cochin-China, and Java it is a 

 common practice to exact two crops of rice yearly from the same 

 soil, one in April and one in October, and an English acre in Java 

 so cultivated has been found to yield an annual produce of 560 lbs. 

 of cleaned rice. In the same island an acre of good land yielding 

 annually one green crop and a crop of rice was found to produce 

 941 lbs. of clean grained rice or about 1250 lbs. of paddy. 



It would not be difficult to re-produce many other calculations that 

 have been made of the out-turn per acre and of the remunerative 

 quality of rice cultivation. To do so, however, would be of little use, 

 as the calculations are mere estimates, and are often evidently very 

 inaccurate.* 



Rice is the favourite food-grain of the people of Asia ; but, except 

 in Arracan, and a few other districts, in which it constitutes the chief 

 and almost only article cultivated, its use is confined to the richer 

 classes throughout the country. 



Rice is used for food for man, beast, and bird ; for the manufacture 



* Mr. H. J. S. Cotton in ' Calcutta Review,' 1874. 



Y 



