Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/499

 — FYZ

421

tkese last months, will never in this part of Oudh be called upon to provide anything but occasional relief works. It was very different in former years, when cultivation was backward and there was no variety of staples, when the main crop was rice, one peculiarly liable to vicissitudes of seasons. I

am

disposed to believe, after long study, that prices in a district like

if taken for particular staples and particular seasons, will shed light upon the pathology and therapeutics of the food supplies and scarcities. Those staples must be the grains ordinarily consumed by the masses, and the seasons must be those in which the marked prices are determined, not by the purchases of the grain-dealers from the small farmers, but by the purchases of the great mass of consumers from the dealers for daily food.

Fyzabad,

Prices famine.

indicating

For instance, to illustrate the first point, wheat and gram are not ordinary articles of consumption in most years by the people, nay, during nearly one half the year, as already pointed out, even maize and urd are not articles of ordinary consumption by the masses, and during another half barley and peas are not in common use.

—

Each

staple

is

its season of abundance ; out of that season sold for seed, or to those who, for special purposes or fancies, are willing to pay a high price. Horses, for instance, in India are generally fed on juar or maize in the summer months, on gram in the

consumed in it

The rate at vbjch the coarse grains are sold each in its season.

is

months from March till October. European gentlemen insist on having gram all the year, and, except where their long-continued demand and For instance, capital hav^ produced a supply, they pay a fancy price. during the five months, October to February 1869, gram was at 10 to 11 I was then sers per rupee in Fyzabad, and was at 9 to 10 sers in Kheri. under the impression that famine was imminent. But during those months, junri or small juar varied in price from 22 to 28 sers for the rupee. I am here quoting, not the official grain rates, which always are liable to more or less suspicion, bui the records of actual purchases made at the time by respectable grain-dealers, and transcribed from their books by myself for

a number of years. The following are last scarcities, i.

e,,

of

tables representing the prices 1866 and of 1869 :—

PRICES FOR 1866. Quantity per Rupee.

which ruled during the