WHEAT AREA EXPANSION 27 duccs are generally marketed immediately after the harvest, it is realistic to allow one year's lag in correlating pertinent prices with area.3 Values of coefficients of correlation between area under wheat and its price relative to each of its competing crops arc given in Table II. Price series from 1966-67 to 1973-74 are correlated with area series of 1967-68 to 1974-75, assuming a one year lag in the response of area to price. It may be noted that the number of observations is not equal for all the districts. Table II shows that none of the coefficients, are significant at 5 percent probability level. Therefore, the hypothesis that movements of relative price of wheat had no role in the expansion of its area can be accepted to be true. Nothing has been said so far about boro paddy the period of cultivation of which roughly coincides with that of wheat. Despite this coincidence of growing period, boro paddy is not strictly competitive with wheat so far as land is concerned. Low land, having a higher percentage of soil moisture at the time of sowing, is not congenial for wheat cultivation while it favours growing of boro paddy. It can thus be concluded that the recent expansion of wheat area in West Bengal can hardly be explained in terms of behaviour of area under other crops grown in the same season. To find the factors responsible for the recent area expansion of wheat it may be necessary to compare the figures indicating changes in the gross area irrigated, yield of wheat per hectare and area under wheat in different districts as given in Table III. The value of COEFFICIENTS OF GORRE] OF WHEAT IN TDistrict LATION BETWEE ^IAJOR WHEATfl963-( Coefficient FABLE IIN AREA UNDER GROWING DISTR34 to 1974-75) s of correlation bsi WHEAT AND PRI ICTS OF WEST Btween area under VL CE RELATIVE ENOALiheat and price of wheat relat\ ive to price of Potato Gram Mustard Sugar cane 1 2 3 4 5 Burdwan 0.5430 0.1997 0.3516 0.5295 Birbhum -0.0677 -0.0966 -0.0653 -0.2203 Bankura 0.4810 -0.5515 -0.4134 0.2221 Midnapore 0.3689 0.6897 0.4922 0.4984 Hooghly 0.6024 0.5024 0.2918 0.5152 24-Parganas 0.2162 -0.1062 0.1525 0.1369 Nadia 0.2380 0.1565 0.0966 0.0748 Murshidabad 0.2140 ©.4353 0.2853 0.4924 West Dinajpur 0.5327 0.2744 0.0317 0.3499 Malda -0.0912 -0.1759 -0.1824 0.0643 West Bengal 0.3599 -0.3001 -0.1454 0.0954 NOTE: Not significant at 5 percent probability level