INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

68 RECENT FAMINES.
ing years was able to suggest minute details.
Economy of water was the first principle instilled:
preference was to be given, in distributing
it, to the food-grains instead of to the more
lucrative crops, such as sugar-cane, indigo, &c. ;
and, curiously enough, rice was among the condemned
products. Rice, compared with wheat
and other grains common in the North-West,
requires a much larger proportion of water for
its sustenance; if. the produce does not justify the
large expenditure of water in a season of severe
drought-hence the ban which is put upon it.
In other districts not within the beneficial
influence of canals, relief-works on a large scale
were nndertaken. and everything went on well.
But in some of the native states of Rajputana
it was far different: it is principally with these
that the chief interest lies in describing this
famine. Western Rajputana in 1869 corresponded
in a somewhat similar degree to Orissa
in 1866. It was isolated. Hemmed in by the
Indian desert along one half of its perimeter, it
had only three decent roads of inlet on the
other side whereby to obtain supplies. Happily
" See note in Appendix on this subject.