Foop GRAINS IN INDIA. 209 

where about 38 million acres are annually sown. The other 
provinces where rice fields cover any considerable area are 
Madras, 6,700,000 acres; Burma, 6,600,000 acres; North 
West Provinces and Oudh, 7,400,000; and the Central 
Provinces, 4,600,000 acres. The total yield of rice in British 
India is stated to amount to 28 million tons in an averige 
year, but no annual estimates of the yield are prepared for 
the whole of India. For the three provinces of Bengal 
Madras, and Burma, the yield for five years 1894-98 averaged 
about 21,850,000 tons of cleaned rice. This grain, as is well 
known, forms one of the chief articles of human food in India, 
and it may be noted that of the total production only about 
1,600,000 tons, or about 5.7 per cent., are exported. 
The importance, however, of rice tothe native population 
for food purposes is probably approached, if not exceeded, by 
tnaewor  milllets and pulse; indeed, it 1s stated in the 
“Dictionary of Economic Products of India” that whilst rice is 
the staple food of the people of Bengal, and probably of Madras 
and Burma, yet, taking the people of India as a whole, 
millets and pulse collectively might with greater approxi- 
mation to accuracy be named as the chief food materials, 
heemany <parts of India, rice is indeed as much a 
luxury as wheat is in others, and even in rice-producing 
districts the poor have often to eke out subsistence by greatly 
supplementing rice diet by coarser and less expensive articles. 
The area devoted to millet and pulse crops cannot be accur- 
ately stated as the statistics show about 26 million acres 
sown with “ other grain and pulse crops,” but it is probable 
that these are largely peas, beans, and other leguminous 
varieties; the surface, however, devoted to millet and gram 
or chick-pea alone amounted to nearly 51 million acres in 
1897-98. Millets of various kinds are largely grown for home 
consumption in the wheat-producing districts ; the principal 
varieties being jawar, Sorghum vulgare or great millet, bajra 
or spiked millet ; and ragi, which is the staple grain of Mysore, 
where it was cultivated to the extent of 2,391,c00 acres. The 
area devoted to jawar in 1897-98 was 23,800,000 acres; 
whilst bajra was grown on 12,900,000 acres; and ragi on 
3»774,000 acres, in addition to the area in Mysore. No 
P 
