The Indian Wheat Trade. 
03 
Mr. Klopp, in Februaiy last, said that in the districts supply- 
ing Calcutta, of which the North-Western Provinces rank as 
the most important, the supply of last year's wheat was neai-ly 
exhausted. Never before had he known the pits in which the 
ryots store their wheat to be nearly all empty, as they were 
at that time. Now, although the people do not subsist on wheat 
to a great extent in ordinary circumstances, they are accustomed 
to keep a good reserve stock of it as a security against famine, 
in the event of a failure in the crops of rice and other common 
kinds of grain. The price of wheat has obviously been high 
enough to tempt them to throw aside their usual caution, and 
" the dangerous position in which they thus placed themselves 
raises the question — by no means a new one — whether the export 
trade in wheat is altogether advantageous to the cultivators. 
Messrs. Ralli, in theu' general remarks," confidently express 
the opinion that the growth of wheat in India has increased, at 
least in the districts embraced by their inquiry. Now we have 
not long had the advantage of agricultural statistics for India 
deserving of anything like confidence, and therefore the com- 
parison of the existing wheat area with that of previous years 
cannot be carried far back. As far as we can be guided by 
official figures, there is no reason to suppose that any great 
increase in the wheat area of India as a whole has taken place 
during the last four or five years. Nevertheless, Messrs. Ralli 
may be perfectly right in concluding that there has been a 
great increase in the districts immediately contiguous to the 
railways, and, indeed, I am assured by other authorities that 
this is the case. According to the Indian Revenue and Agri- 
cultural Department, the " normal area " of wheat in British 
India is about 26,000,000 acres. In the following table the 
official estimates of the normal area and the acreage for the last 
two years are given : — ■ 
Province 
Normal area 
Area in 1886 
Area in ISSr 
cores 
acres 
acres 
7,000,000 
6,970,600 
5,943,400 
North-Western Provinces and Oudh . 
5,037,000 
5,240,381 
4,962,942 
4,000,000 
3,902,707 
4,297,949 
2,500,000 
3,500,000 
3,500,000 
2,500,000 
1,500,000 
1,562,309 
Bombay with Baroda 
1,883,000 
2,969,539 
2,860,454 
Bengal (Behar) 
1,134,900 
850,000 
1,009,335 
750,000 
1,144,000 
1,156,229 
854,000 
808,515 
933,938 
500,000 
500,000 
500,000 
20,000 
20,000 
8,928 
Totals 
26,178,900 
27,405,742 
26,735,484 
