208 Foop GRAINS IN INDIA. 

The experiments to determine the influence of floored and 
unfloored houses on laying hens also extended over two 
years. Inthe first experiment six lots of fowls were included, 
representing the Black Langshan, Brown Leghorn, and Blue 
Andalusian breeds. Lots 1 to 3 were placed in pensina 
portion of the poultry house which was floored with rough 
boards from 2 to 3 ft. above the ground, and the other lots 
were kept in pens in the unfloored portion. The grain ration 
fed varied somewhat during the five months during which the 
experiment lasted, but was uniform for all lots: 
The results of the two years’ experiments are stated to have 
shown that fowls remain in as healthy a condition, and lay 
as many or more eggs when kept in unfloored houses, as they 
do when kept in houses provided with floors. 

2 
PRODUCTION AND EXPORT: OF FOOD GRAINS OF INDIA. 
The proportion of the area of British India which is 
devoted to the production of food-grains is exceeded by few 
countries in the world, no less than 34 per cent. being 
devoted to this purpose. The area of India, exclusive of 
tributary States, is 542 million acres, and the surface under 
food grains such as rice, millets, wheat, barley, maize, and 
pulse in 1897-98 was according to the Agricultural Statistics 
of British India 182,745,000 acres, whilst the surface from 
which the remaining crops, including oil-seeds, cotton, sugar 
jute, fodder, orchard and garden produce was taken, only 
amounted to about 41 million acres, making a total pro- 
ductive area of 223 million acres. Of this, however, 27 
millions carried more than one crop; so that the net 
cultivated area was about 196 million acres. It will therefore 
be seen that 82 per cent. of the gross cultivated area was 
devoted to the production of grain for food. 
The most important of these grains is rice, which in 1897-98 
occupied 70,781,000 acres, an area about 3 million acres 
above the average of the previous five years. This cereal is 
cultivated throughout India, but most largely in Bengal, 
