_Millets._--Taking India as a whole, the staple food grain is neither rice nor wheat, but millets, which are probably the most prolific grain in the world, and the best adapted to the vicissitudes of a tropical climate. Excluding the special rice-growing tracts, different kinds of millet are grown more extensively than any other crop from Madras in the south at least as far as Rajputana in the north. The _sorghum_ or great millet, generally known as _jowar_ or _cholum_, is the staple grain crop of southern India. The spiked millet, known as _bajra_ or _cumbu_, which yields a poorer food, is grown on dry sandy soil in the Deccan and the Punjab. A third sort of millet, _ragi_ or _marua_, is cultivated chiefly in Madras and Bengal. There are also other kinds, which are included as a rule under the general head of "other food grains." Millet crops are grown for the most part on unirrigated land. In the Bombay Deccan districts they cover generally upwards of 60% of the grain area, or an even larger proportion in years of drought. In Gujarat about half the grain area is under millets or maize in ordinary years. The grain is consumed almost entirely in India, though a small amount is exported. _Pulses._--Among pulses gram covers in ordinary years more than 10 millions of acres, chiefly in the United Provinces, the Punjab and Bengal. Gram is largely eaten by the poorer classes, but it is also used as horse-food. Other pulses, lentils, &c., are extensively grown, but the area under these crops is liable to great contraction in years of drought, as it consists for the most part of unirrigated lands. _Oil-seeds._--Oil-seeds also form an important crop in all parts of the country, being perhaps more universally grown than any other, as oil is necessary, according to native custom, for application to the person, for food, and for burning in lamps. In recent years the cultivation of oil-seeds has received an extraordinary stimulus owing to the demand for export to Europe, especially to France; but as they can be grown after rice, &c., as a second crop, this increase has hardly at all tended to diminish the production of food grains. The four chief varieties grown are mustard or rape seed, linseed, _til_ or gingelly (sesamum), and castor-oil. Bengal and the United Provinces are at present the chief sources of supply for the foreign demand, but gingelly is largely exported from Madras, and, to a smaller extent, from Burma. These seeds are for the most part pressed in India either in bullock presses or in oil-mills. The refuse or cake is of great value to agriculturists, as it forms a food for cattle, and in the case of sesamum it is eaten by the people. But a very large quantity of the seeds is exported. The total value of oils and oil-seeds exported in 1905-1906 was over 7½ millions sterling.