Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/183

KAH 175 five acres of good land a crop equivalent to 900lbs. of wheat per acre, that is, in food value and inoney value. Perhaps one-quarter of the cultivating houschold will produce more, and one quarter will produce less, but 900lbs. per acre will be the average in soil suitable for wheat. The economical result is that the small farmer, who has no casualties in average years, gets just the price of his daily labour as an unskilled workman on the roads, and interest on his capital at the very lowest rate. It is also probable that if the tenant has to water his whcat threc times, as happens in years when the winter rains are deficient, he will cultivate at an actual loss-a loss which of course he cannot foresee. In most years two waterings are sufficient; but if he has to pay current interest, or if there is any drought, or murrain, or sickness in his own family during harvest or irrigation seasons, his farm will entail a loss. Rents, present and former.-Rents in Kheri are not as yet by any means high as a rule, but they are very uneven. The highest rents I have met with were Rs. 2-12-0 the kachcha bígba, or Rs. 16-8-0 per acre for tobacco land, Rs. 2-4-0 or Rs. 13-8-0 per acre for sugarcanein Haidarabad. Common rates for average land are six to eight rupees per acre for land near the village suitable for wheat. Sugarcane is generally charged a differential rate (nine rupees per acre is about the present average), but a pot of molasses and a lot of cane are also taken from every field; this last should be limited to one biswa in every bígha. The lowest rented lands are the outlying patches far from the sites of the villages in Palia, Kukra, and Bhúr; two annas a pakka bigha, or eight annas per acre, is met with, but one rupee an acre is quite common for such lands. Tepantry are allowed to settle at these rates, and when they have built houses and dug wells rents are raised as population increases. The nominal rents under the native rulers were much the same as they are now; sugarcane was even higher. Pargana rates are not known. A number of curious customs touching grain rents and other payments are given in the following extract from Mr. Williams' report on Bhúr and Srinagar : "Method of weighment of crop.--But even if error and fraud be not intended, and the jamábandi entries represent correctly the landlord's share as ascertained at the time of division of the crop, the extraordinary method of weighment pursued is sufficient to ensure the uselessness of any statement professing to record the produce. Regular standard weights are never employed in the khaliyán. A large smooth stone of conve- nient shape, and of every weight from two to four panseris, is thrown into one scale of the balance. A quantity of grain of equal weight is put in the other. This the landlord takes. The process is repeated again and again, landlord and tenant taking each in turn, If the tenant is holding at a one-third rent, he has two turns to the landlord's one. If he is hold- ing at one-fourth, he has three turns to the landlord's one. Very fre- quently to save time a large quantity of grain is thrown into the scale containing the stone. The tbrcshing-floor.