I 
On the Conditions of T\^ieat-&)-oiving in India. 25 
detailed investigation, the result being the appearance of first 
one volume and then another on " The AVheat Production and 
Trade in India." These volumes set forth the results of the inquiries 
instituted in every district of India, and placed before the public 
a body of facts which, while couched in the guarded phraseology 
incidental to Indian official correspondence, may be accepted as 
probably quite as accurate as the wheat reports of other countries 
which appear with a greater degree of assurance of accuracy. 
Even in the most advanced countries it is difficult, if not 
impossible, to give absolute statements of areas under crops, 
or to procure details of internal trade. Doubt has in various 
quarters been expressed as to the accuracy of Indian quotations, 
mainly, if not entirely, from the peculiar language adopted by 
Indian writers. The Indian Survey Department is perhaps 
second to no other survey in the -world. Its returns are, year 
by yea,r, filling up the details of India ; and it may safely be said 
that while certain writers have lent themselves to speculate on 
the character and nature of the Indian wheat trade, no report 
of actual facts of areas under wheat, or of the extension of 
agricultural operations generally, or even of estimated out-turn 
of crops, has been subsequently shown to have been materially 
incorrect. 
It should not be forgotten that Government lands have to 
be periodically re-assessed, and for this purpose a number of 
officers are sent specially to the district under re-settlement, who 
travel from village to village and from field to field, the result 
being the publication of the Settlement Report, which forms the 
basis of the Government re-assessment. For certain tracts of 
the country this jjeriodical settlement affords most valuable data 
for judging of agricultural pi-ogress. The jDroductive nature 
of every village, and even of the several fields of each village, is 
carefully determined, and the decision of the Settlement Office 
approved by the people. It would be absurd to throw such 
reports aside as mere approximations. They afibrd the ground- 
work, on which as accurate statements may be founded as can 
be shown for any other country of even half the magnitude of 
India. 
In addition to furnishing a chapter for the general report 
issued by the Government of India on " The Wheat Production 
and Trade in India," the Panjab Government issued in 1884 a 
separate publication called " Panjab "Wheat." From these works, 
and from the Settlement, Administrative, and Agricultural 
Reports, together with the subsequent special reports which, it 
is believed, will shortly appear as the third volume of "The 
Wheat Production and Trade in India," we have largely culled 
the information brought together in this paper. 
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