The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1883-06-27
Indian vs.. American Wheat.

producing capacity ana prospects OF India.
The wheat fields of America may have in
England's Indian provinces a competitor
in European markets, which will compel
the farmers to employ every means to
cheaper production, and the railways to
reduce the cost of transportation in order
to maintain hold upon the foreign de-
mand. In general way it is understood
that the annual wheat production of India
is now about 240,000,000 bushels. The
expectation has varied from twelve mil
lion bushels for the year ended 1878, to
two million in 1879, four million in 1890.
fourteen million in 1881 and thirty-seven
million in 1882. The total area devoted
to wheat is twenty million acres. The
general average production per acre is
about twelve bushels, though instances
are not uncommon of yield as high as
twenty-five or thirty bushels per acre.
Irrigation is the leading factor in the pre-
duction of wheat, and the general and
local governments are giving special at
tention to the construction of system of
canal irrigation. One of these canals has
recently been finished, the main line of
which is over five hundred miles long, and
through twenty-five hundred miles of mi.
nor canals it will water $50, 900 acres. The
wheat is sowed in drills and weeded like
garden stuff. The wheat d" fields" are
not much larger than garden patches in
the United States, but, says the report,
the agricultural population numbers
nearly 200,0O0,000, and it is the aggre-
gate of innumerable little units, which in
agriculture, as in everything else in India,
brings the country into Importance. This
fact has much to do with the future of the
competition in wheat raising between
India and the United States. The Indian
peasant is tenant on hard conditions and
is almost fixture on the particular spot
of land on which he was born; his wants
are few and he endures hunger and pov-
erty with patience; he cultivates his little
patch of from five to fifteen acres on
shares for the land owner, and, if after the
exactions of landlord, priest and usurer,
he can net ten cents day by his labor,
that will suffice for the most pressing
wants of his family. His home is mud
or bamboo hut, and his entire outfit, in live
stock and tools, is worth not over fifty dol
lars. His pillow is crooked piece of wood
with an iron point, his harrow resembles
a common ladder, which in use is dragged
crosswise over the field by a pair of little
bullocks, and his other tools are equally
rude, such as his ancestors used a thou
sand years ago. He sows by hand, reaps
with a rude sickle, carries the sheaves
home on his back, or in the bullock cart,
threshes with club or by the tramping
OF his cattle, and cleans the grain by
hand-winnowing. The Indian peasant
can thus afford to sell his wheat in the
nearest market place for from fifty to sixty
cents bushel but if it does not bring
that price he will consume his small sup
ply, or store it in hole in the ground and
wait for a rise. When that time comes
he will sell very short and subsist upon
inferior grains, " so that great elasticity
in the amount of surplus is constantly
kept up by the countless host of the peas.
ants themselves" The necessity for cut
ting the land up into small patches to fla.
cilitate irrigation and to suit the myriads
whose only means of support is a rude
kind of agriculture, these and other ply
steal obstacles, it is said, are reasons why
farming on large scale can not be under
taken, while the extremely low price of
labor is barrier against the successful
use of machinery. 1t is regarded as GER
tain that wheat is now produced in that
country at very nearly the minimum cost
There are agreat many varieties of wheat
produced in India, the report continues,
and efforts are making to select those
most in demand in the European markets.
The leading kinds are ~ soft white
wheat of bright straw color and a white
houry feature, in demand by English
millers on account of its dryness (2)
hard white wheat with a brittle grain,
and of flinty or ricey appearance, in
favor among the Italian makers of maca.
roni (s) soft red wheat, differing from
the soft white only in the redness of the
skin and the smaller grain 4) a hard
red wheat of dark brown color translu-
cent in appearance with smooth and glass
like fracture. Judged by the English
standard, tho first group has been found
equal to the best California and Oregon,
but the average best grade is between
numbers and 2 Milwaukee. In the In.
dian market the first group ranks highest
in price and the others differ by about
five cents bushel.