INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

138 ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT
may hold off at the beginning of the season and
excite great anxiety, notwithstanding that the
future rainfall proves abundant: or they may
have been favourable in the early part of the
season and scanty thereafter; but having developed
an abundance of straw, a deceptive appearance
is the result, the truth of which is not
known till the grain is actually thrashed. Another
phase is, that the rains have been very
partial; one district has flourishing crops, while
its neighbour has nothing whatever to show:
and this checkered result may extend over a
whole province, and thus give rise to most varied
and contradictory reports from the different
officials. Against any of these instances of partial
failures of rain, it would always be safe to
provide for relief; but it is the extent that will
be necessary which puzzles.
India, it must also be remembered, is a large
country, and its soils and climates are various.
The results that may be predicted in one province
from a certain fall of rain, would falsify
expectations in another. Rice, the product of
a naturally damper climate, would pine with
a rainfall which proves abundant for jowar,