Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1877 — Our New Wheat-Competitor. [ARTICLE]

Our New Wheat-Competitor.

British India has several times made up deficiencies of agricultural products in other parts of the world. It did so during the Crimean war, when the supply of Russian jute failed; and again during the American war, when the exports of Indian cotton rose at a bound from 200,000,000 to 800,000,000 pounds per annum. Western Europe now wants wheat, and India has gone into wheatgrowing. An article in the last number of the Fortnightly Review gives an interesting statement of the progress of this industry during the last few years. It shows that the imports of Indian wheat into Great Britain increased from 291,200 bushels in 1872 to 6,136,160 bushels in 1876, and to 9,283,130 during the first nine months of 1877. These figures have special significance in view of the fact that wheat-growing is still a new branch of agriculture in India. When the facilities for gathering the crop and bringing it to market are improved, as they eventually will be, India, which is already the third wheatexporting country in the world, may successfully compete with the United States for the first position. India has the advantage of every variety of climate and' soil. Whatever can be grown in the tropics or the temperate zones can be produced there. Tribune.