t)ec. 1894.] PRODUCTION OF FOOB GRAINS IN INDIA. 



175 



In dealing with the question of the inei'ease of India's pro= 

 ductiveness by the utilisation of the culturable waste lands, it is 

 pointed out that the future food supply of India must of 

 necessity be influenced, as it is at present, by the gradual 

 utilisation of these lands, which are not likely to remain utterl}^ 

 neglected whilst the rest of India advances with the times. The 

 cultivated area of India has been stated to bear to the culturable 

 area a ratio of 3 to 2, that is to say, for every three acres culti- 

 vated there are two acres capable of being cultivated, but which 

 have not as yet been required to meet the home uecessities of India, 

 or the demands of her foreign trade. As a general statement, 

 this view of the position may be accepted, though not, strictly 

 speaking, correct. 



It is believed that future surveys will, in analysing the 

 returns of Bengal and Assam, raise the total cultivated and 

 fallow area for all British India to, say, 220 million, and reveal 

 the culturable waste as 120 million acres. While it is admitted 

 that the probable productiveness of the available waste lands is 

 never likely to be of equal value with that at present under 

 cultivation, it is considered safe to affirm that with the extension 

 of measures of irrigation, more thorough and complete facilities of 

 transport improvements in methods and materials of agriculture 

 and the expansion of the area of cultivation [{a) in ascertained 

 culturable waste, and (h) in regions for which no returns exist], 

 the productiveness of India might easily be increased by at least 

 50 per cent. 



