Reports ox Foreign Crops. 



was not encouraging. In the North- West Provinces and 

 Oudh, dry weather had helped to reduce the sowings by 

 15 per cent. ; the seed germinated well, and the prospects of 

 this irrigated crop were good. In dry lands everything 

 depended on the timely arrival of rain. In the remaining 

 wheat regions the prospects were much more discouraging. 

 In the Central Provinces, with few exceptions, an almost 

 total failure was to be looked for unless rain came. In 

 Bombay it seemed unlikely that more than half the average 

 acreage would be sown. In Sind, Gujerat, and the Deccan 

 the area is smaller than usual, but larger in the Karnatak 

 while in Berar it was only a twentieth of last year's area. 

 In these districts the drought rendered the prospects very 

 poor on dry lands, although the crop was generally in fair 

 condition in Sind and on irrigated lands. 



Argentine Wheat Crop of 1898-99. 



The Division of Statistics and Rural Economy of the Argen- 

 tine Ministry of Agriculture has recently published an esti- 

 mate of the area and production of the wheat crop of the 

 Republic in 1898-99. The estimate is based on returns 

 collected from the owners of threshing machines, the latter 

 being already registered for purposes of taxation, in the pro- 

 vinces of Santa Fe, Buenos Ayres, Cordova, and Entre Rios. 

 From the results ascertained in these provinces, the area sown 

 with wheat in Argentina in 1898-99 is estimated to have 

 exceeded 7,500,003 acres, and the production of grain to have 

 amounted to 104,952,000 bushels. 



The consumption of wheat per head of the Argentine 

 population formed the subject of inquiry at the national 

 census, and is estimated at five bushels per annum. The 

 average quantity of wheat used for seed is calculated at one 

 bushel per acre. 



The Belgian Harvest of 1899. 

 The official preliminary return of the vield of crops in 

 Belgium in 1899, received through the Foreign Office, shows 



