to adapt their simple methods to differing circumstances. For
irrigation, native patience and ingenuity have devised means which
compare not unfavourably with the colossal projects of government.
Manure is copiously applied to the more valuable crops whenever
manure is available, its use being limited by poverty and not by
ignorance. The rotation of crops is not adopted as a principle of
cultivation; but in practice it is well known that a succession of
exhausting crops cannot be taken in consecutive seasons from the
same field, and the advantage of fallows is widely recognized. The
periodicity of the seasons usually allows two, and sometimes three,
harvests in the year, but not necessarily, nor indeed usually, from
the same fields. For inexhaustible fertility, and for retentiveness
of moisture in a dry year, no soil in the world can surpass the “black
cotton-soil” of the Deccan. In the broad river basins the inundations
deposit annually a fresh top-dressing of silt, thus superseding
the necessity of manures.
Wheat.—Within recent years wheat has become one of the most important crops in India, more especially for export. The canal colonies of the Punjab have turned northern India into one of the great grain-fields of the British empire; and in 1904 India took the first place in supplying wheat to the United Kingdom, sending nearly 2512 million cwts. out of a total of 9734 millions. In 1905, however, it fell back again into the third place, being passed by Russia and Argentina. Wheat is grown chiefly in the Punjab, the United Provinces, and the Central Provinces. In 1905–1906 there were 23 million acres under wheat in the whole of India, of which 812 million were in the Punjab alone.
Rice.—The name of rice has from time immemorial been so closely associated with Indian agriculture that it is difficult to realize how comparatively small an area is planted with this crop. With the exception of the deltas of the great rivers and the long strip of land fringing the western coast, rice may be called an occasional crop throughout the remainder of the peninsula. But where it is grown it is grown to the exclusion of all other crops. The rice crop is most important in Burma, Bengal and Madras, and there is an average of 20 million acres under rice in the other provinces of British India. In Bengal the area varies from 36 to 40 million acres according to the season. In Burma, where the large waste area is being gradually brought under cultivation, there has been an almost uninterrupted increase in the area of the rice crop, and the rice export is one of the main industries of the province. In ordinary years most of this rice goes either to Europe or to the Farther East; but in famine seasons a large part is diverted to peninsular India, and Burma is the most important of the outside sources from which the deficient crops are supplemented. In 1905–1906 the export of rice from India was valued at 1212 millions sterling.
Millets.—Taking India as a whole, the staple food grain is neither rice nor wheat, but millets, which are probably the most prolific grain in the world, and the best adapted to the vicissitudes of a tropical climate. Excluding the special rice-growing tracts, different kinds of millet are grown more extensively than any other crop from Madras in the south at least as far as Rajputana in the north. The sorghum or great millet, generally known as jowar or cholum, is the staple grain crop of southern India. The spiked millet, known as bajra or cumbu, which yields a poorer food, is grown on dry sandy soil in the Deccan and the Punjab. A third sort of millet, ragi or marua, is cultivated chiefly in Madras and Bengal. There are also other kinds, which are included as a rule under the general head of “other food grains.” Millet crops are grown for the most part on unirrigated land. In the Bombay Deccan districts they cover generally upwards of 60% of the grain area, or an even larger proportion in years of drought. In Gujarat about half the grain area is under millets or maize in ordinary years. The grain is consumed almost entirely in India, though a small amount is exported.
Pulses.—Among pulses gram covers in ordinary years more than 10 millions of acres, chiefly in the United Provinces, the Punjab and Bengal. Gram is largely eaten by the poorer classes, but it is also used as horse-food. Other pulses, lentils, &c., are extensively grown, but the area under these crops is liable to great contraction in years of drought, as it consists for the most part of unirrigated lands.
Oil-seeds.—Oil-seeds also form an important crop in all parts of the country, being perhaps more universally grown than any other, as oil is necessary, according to native custom, for application to the person, for food, and for burning in lamps. In recent years the cultivation of oil-seeds has received an extraordinary stimulus owing to the demand for export to Europe, especially to France; but as they can be grown after rice, &c., as a second crop, this increase has hardly at all tended to diminish the production of food grains. The four chief varieties grown are mustard or rape seed, linseed, til or gingelly (sesamum), and castor-oil. Bengal and the United Provinces are at present the chief sources of supply for the foreign demand, but gingelly is largely exported from Madras, and, to a smaller extent, from Burma. These seeds are for the most part pressed in India either in bullock presses or in oil-mills. The refuse or cake is of great value to agriculturists, as it forms a food for cattle, and in the case of sesamum it is eaten by the people. But a very large quantity of the seeds is exported. The total value of oils and oil-seeds exported in 1905–1906 was over 712 millions sterling.
Vegetables.—Vegetables are everywhere cultivated in garden plots for household use, and also on a larger scale in the neighbourhood of great towns. Among favourite native vegetables, the following may be mentioned:—the egg-plant, called brinjal or baigan (Solanum Melongena), potatoes, cabbages, cauliflower, radishes, onions, garlic, turnips, yams, and a great variety of cucurbitaceous plants, including Cucumis sativus, Cucurbita maxima, Lagenaria vulgaris, Trichosanthes dioica, and Benincasa cerifera. Of these, potatoes, cabbages, and turnips are of comparatively recent introduction. Almost all English vegetables can be raised by a careful gardener. Potatoes thrive best on the higher elevations, such as the Khasi hills, the Nilgiris, the Mysore uplands, the Shan States, and the slopes of the Himalayas; but they are also grown even in lowland districts.
Fruits.—Among cultivated fruits are the following:—Mango (Mangifera indica), plantain (Musa paradisiaca), pine-apple (Ananassa sativa), pomegranate (Punica Granatum), guava (Psidium pomiferum and P. pyriferum), tamarind (Tamarindus indica), jack (Artocarpus integrifolia), custard-apple (Anona squamosa), papaw (Carica Papaya), shaddock (Citrus decumana), and several varieties of fig, melon, orange, lime and citron. According to the verdict of Europeans, no native fruits can compare with those of England. But the mangoes of Bombay, of Multan, and of Malda in Bengal, and the oranges of Nagpur and the Khasi hills, enjoy a high reputation; while the guavas of Madras are made into an excellent preserve.
Spices.—Among spices, for the preparation of curry and other hot dishes, turmeric and chillies hold the first place, being very generally cultivated. Next in importance come ginger, coriander, aniseed, black cummin, and fenugreek. Pepper proper is confined to the Malabar coast, from Kanara to Travancore. Cardamoms are a valuable crop in the same locality, and also in the Nepalese Himalayas. Pan or betel-leaf is grown by a special caste in most parts of the country. Its cultivation requires constant care, but is highly remunerative. The betel-nut or areca palm is chiefly grown in certain favoured localities, such as the deltaic districts of Bengal and the highlands of southern India.
Palms.—Besides betel-nut (Areca Catechu), the palms of India include the coco-nut (Cocos nucifera), the bastard date (Phoenix sylvestris), the palmyra (Borassus flabellifer), and the true date (Phoenix dactylifera). The coco-nut, which loves a sandy soil and a moist climate, is found in greatest perfection along the strip of coast-line that fringes the west of the peninsula, where it ranks next to rice as the staple product. The bastard date, grown chiefly in the country round Calcutta and in the north-east of the Madras presidency, supplies both the jaggery sugar of commerce and intoxicating liquors for local consumption. Spirit is also distilled from the palmyra, especially in the neighbourhood of Bombay and in the south-east of Madras. The true date is almost confined to Sind.
Sugar.—Sugar is manufactured both from the sugar-cane and from the bastard date-palm, but the total production is inadequate to the local demand. The best cane is grown in the United Provinces, on irrigated land. It is an expensive crop, requiring much attention, and not yielding a return within the year; but the profits are proportionately large. The normal area under sugar-cane in India is generally about 3 million acres, chiefly in the United Provinces, Bengal, and the Punjab. A large share of the produce is consumed in the form of gur or unrefined sugar, and the market for this preparation is independent of foreign competition. The total import of sugar in 1905–1906 was valued at £5,182,000, chiefly from Java and Mauritius.
Indigo.—Owing to the manufacture of synthetic indigo by German chemists the export trade in indigo, which was formerly the most important business carried on by European capital in India, has been almost entirely ruined. In the early years of the 19th century there were colonies of English planters in many districts of Bengal, and it was calculated that the planters of North Behar alone had a turnover of a million sterling. The industry suffered depression owing to the indigo riots of 1860 and the emancipation of the peasantry by the Land Act of 1859; but in the closing decade of the century it received a much more disastrous blow from the invention of the German chemists. In 1895–1896 the area under indigo was 1,570,000 acres, and the value of the exports £3,569,700, while in 1905–1906 the area had sunk to 383,000 acres, and the value of the exports to £390,879. The only hope of rescuing the industry from total disappearance lies in the fact that the natural indigo gives a faster dye than the manufactured product, while an effort has also been made to introduce the Java-Natal seed into India, which gives a much heavier yield, and so may be better able to compete in price with synthetic indigo.
Tea.—The cultivation of tea in India began within the memory of men still living, and now has replaced indigo as the chief article for European capital, more particularly in Assam. Unlike coffee-planting the enterprise owes its origin to the initiation of government, and has never attracted the attention of the natives. Early travellers reported that the tea-plant was indigenous to the southern valleys of the Himalayas; but they were mistaken in the identity of the shrub, which was the Osyris nepalensis. The real tea (Thea viridis), a plant akin to the camellia, grows wild in Assam, being commonly found throughout the hilly tract between the valleys of the Brahmaputra and the Barak. There it sometimes attains the dimensions of a large tree; and from that, as well as from other indications, it has been plausibly inferred that Assam is the original home of the plant,
