—
390
.
.
DIG
be seen that the two crops of rice and Indiain-com conautumn harvest, while the spring Among the more important miscellaneous crops are much more varied. productions are sweet potatoes and melons the former coming to perfection shortly after Christmas, and yielding an immense weight to the acre, tfie latter being planted in the sandy soil along the Gogra, and ripening in the hot weather. A considerable area is under poppy cultivation, but the average yield is exceedingly poor. The managem:ent of this department for Digsar is with the Bahraich, not the Gonda assistant sub-deputy
From
this it will
stitute almost the only staples of the
opium
agent.
I have not been able to ascertain the Government revenue realized on pargana earlier than 1832 A.D., when it amounted altogether to From that time till annexation it oscillated according to the E.S. 74,665. seasons between Rs. 46,648 and Rs. 79,297, the lowest and highest, limits attained, except when that celebrated rent-compeUer'R^ja Darshan Singh Bahadur left his mark in 1837 and 1842 A.D. in the extortionate demands of Rs. 1,16,869 and Rs. 1,08,831. There can be no doubt that the greater part of these monstrous impositions were realized and did any wretched zamindari body fail in paying the last penny, one or more of its leading members were caught and compelled to liquidate the balance by selling It is hardly likely to the nazim the whole of their proprietary rights. that the village landowners apprehended at the time any serious consequences from their act. They had seen many high officials like Darshan Singh rise to great power and then pass away, but none whose influence had endured for two or three generations and they probably thought that a fictitious deed of sale was a fair means for discharging a fictitious debt. At any rate, for the remainder of the native rule these deeds of sale never had any effect, except perhaps when Darshan Singh or one of his family held the office of nazim on the north of the Gogra, in which years they used them as an excuse in some cases for refusing the engagement to the vUlage proprietors ; and their consequences were only felt at the second settlement after the mutiny, when Maharaja Man Singh disinterred them and applied for the settlement of almost all the finest villages in the Nawabganj and Digsar parganas. letter from the deputy commissioner, protesting against the injustice, was stolen from the mail runner between Gonda and Fyzabad; no further enquiries were made, and in the hurry of that difficult time, the engagement for the whole estate claimed was taken from the maharaja. This was shortly after confirmed by the sanad which conveyed to the taluqdar the indefeasible proprietary right in every viUag^ for which he engaged, and the local zamindars discovered that the deeds extorted from them twenty years before had an effect which they never contemplated. this
A
The revenue at annexation was fixed at Rs. 80,273, including all cesses, This was raised at the regular settlement in 1870 A.D. to Rs. 1,27,277, a sum which might make old Darshan Singh restless in his grave with envy.
There are altogether 110 demarcated villages, but the number of real much larger, as two or more small villages were frequently joined into one big one by the arbitrary caprice of the demarcation villages is very
