Identifier: ridpathshistoryo01ridp (find matches)
Title: Ridpath's history of the world; being an account of the ethnic origin, primitive estate, early migrations, social conditions and present promise of the principal families of men ..
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
Subjects: World history Ethnology
Publisher: New York, Merrill & Baker
Contributing Library: Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston University

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S OF MANKIND. plentifully and wild in the lowlands ofSouthern India. Thus it grows to thepresent day; now the old native grainof the marshes is preferred by the na-tive nabobs and princes to any of thecultivated varieties. India has been regarded as par ex-cellence the native land of rice. Thebelief is not warranted by Extent of the rice crop m dif- the facts. True, the rice ferent districts. r T:) •■• -i -r, swamps of British Bur-mah are among the most fruitful in theworld. In Rangpur eighty-eight per the average crop is as high as two thou-sand five hundred pounds per acre. In1878 the exports of this cereal fromCalcutta amounted to one billion sixhundred million pounds. The rival grain of rice in India iswheat. Where the one prevails theother does not thrive. The center ofthe wheat-producing: region r . Extent and is the Punjab, and it is character of the1-1 1 ,, -, wheat product. not unlikely that here this principal food-grain of the humai family was first brought out of the
Text Appearing After Image:
SCENE I\T THE INDIAN VALLEYS.—Village of Pertoembokkrn.—Drawn by Kiou, from a photograph, cent of the cultivable land is sown inthis single crop. In Orissa also—as isindicated by the name of the province—-and in the deltas of the Godavery,Kistna, and Kaveri, as well as in thelowlands of Malabar and Kanara, riceculture is the one predominant industryand means of support. In the Northwestprovinces the grain is grown success-fully, but only in damp localities. Butif we look at India as a whole, rice is notthe prevailing crop. In the regionsadapted to its cultivation, however, theyield is immense. In British Burmah native state by cultivation to the per-fected form which it has had for morethan three thousand years. The qualityof Indian wheat is satisfactory in thebest markets of the world. It is accept-ed in the great mills of England as thepeer of the wheat imported from theDanubian provinces and other favoritelocalities. The yield, as far as the samehas been determined by censu

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