— 31 — moulds, discoloration, and the attacks of rats and such insect pests as weevil and grain-moth. It is, moreover, obviously inadequate to the situation created by such a succession of lean years as have recently been experienced, for it is limited in application by the cultivator's actual want of ready money. Harvest finds him as a rule deeply involved in liabilities for taxes, rent and loans, and immediate realisation of a large proportion of his crop is compulsory. Thus, on the one hand, he suffers the loss resulting from forced sales at harvest time when prices normally reach their lowest level, and, on the other, locks up part of his capital in a form which is both insecure and profitless. Actual experience has universally demonstrated that the loss attending such storage outweighs any gain that could be anticipated from the usual annual rise in internal prices.

Prospects of an Export Trade.—The uncertain character of our rainfall, however, and the preponderating influence of rain crops on the grain market, render the retention of the reservoir principle essential ; but the point should be made as to whether the substitution of the elevator system would not only furnish less costly storage, but also serve as a foundation for a future export trade, which is regarded as the only available solution of the problem outlined above. It may be noted in this connection that pit-storage of grain is similarly characteristic of isolated areas and markets in India, and becomes everjrwhere less prevalent when improvements in communications enable cultivators to sell their grain for export. In the Sudan low costs of production are still associated with an undeveloped market and inflated forwarding charges, and shipments have hitherto been practically limited to the periodic market created by the Mecca pilgrimage and occasional abnormal demands from Egypt.

Analysis of the annual prices given above affords the following normal values for the staple white dura for the nine years ending 1915 in milliemes per 100 kilos :— Wad Medani.