INDIA AS A WHEAT PRODUCER.--"Consul-General Bonham says she is a dangerous competitor of the United States. The report of Consul-General Bonham at Calcutta, British India, treats at length of the wheat interests of that country. The area devoted to wheat in 1886 was about 27,500,000 acres, and the total yield 289,000,000 bushels. As compared with the wheat of the Pacific coast, the Indian wheat is inferior, but when exported to Europe it is mixed and ground with wheat of a superior quality, by which process a fair marketable grade of flour is obtained. The method of cultivating the soil is in the main the same as it was centuries ago, and there seems to be great difficulty in inducing the farmer to invest in modern agricultural implements, and yet, with all the simple and primitive methods, the Indian farmers can, in the opinion of the Consul-General, successfully compete with those of the United States in the production of wheat. This is due to the fact that the Indian farmer's outfit represents a capital of not more than $40 or $50, and his hired help works, feeds, and clothes himself on about $2.50 a month. The export of wheat from British India has increased from 300,000 cwt. in 1868, to 21,000,000 cwt. in 1886, and the increase of 1886 over 1885 amounts to about 5,000,000 cwt. "The Consul-General says that some of his predecessors have claimed that the United States has nothing to fear from India as a competitor in the production of wheat. In this view he does not concur, and believes that to-day India is second only to the United States in wheat-growing. Furthermore, wheat-growing in India is yet in its infancy, and its further development depends principally upon the means of transportation to the sea-board. He fears that with the cheap native labor of India and the constantly growing facilities for transportation, the United States will find her a formidable competitor as a producer of wheat."