Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/327

LUC 319 For lands of fair quality Rs. 3 the local bigha if irrigated, and Rs. 2 if unirrigated, seem the prevailing rates, these come to Rs. 12 and Rs. 8 tho acre; near towns thc rents are much higher. area. The tenants have adopted an ingenious device for checking rack-rent- ing. They take lands if possible in adjoining villages under different landlords, they have a house in one, and can throw up the land in either if rack-rented, still keeping their house and out-offices in fair proximity to their fields. They say themselves"if persecuted in one village they flee to another;" a combination of landlords is generally prevented by local jealousies, and many tenants thus save themselves by playing off one landlord against another. Tbis course is not possible in large. estates. The tenants often object to taking the compensation decreed them by the courts; they say they or their ancestors did not make the wells to seli. They have other sentimental objections which need not be detailed here. The harvest. --The harvests are the rabi when the spring crops are cut, the wet-weather crops or the kharíf, and the henwat or autumn crops. The heawat is the fifth season amongst the Hindus. Curiously enough, the two former terms are borrowed from the Arabic. The Hindus do not usually go to foreigners for their agricultural terms. For the rabi the chief crops are wheat, barley, gram, peas, gujai-a mixture of wheat and barley ; birra—a mixture of barley and gram, gram predominating, The land under these crops amounts to 244,408 acres, and wheat heads tho list taking up 105,418 acres, or more than one-fifth of the whole cultivated For the kbaríf the crops are rice, the millets, sáwán, mindwa, kákun, and Indian-com or maize. For the henwat the crops are more millets-juár and bájra, and the leguminous grains,—másh, múng, moth, masúr, and lobia. The whole cover 202,800 acres, and all but múng and lobia take up a large space. In addition there are the valuable tobacco and opium, and kachhiána or vegetable crops amounting to 20,262 acres of which Tobacco takes ap Opium Cotton and the spices as zíra (cummin seed), saunf (ariseed), dhaniya (corian- der seed), taking up 623 acres. These are the unmixed crops. For arhar, in which kodo and small millet, juár, and patwa are mixed, and for oil seed (sarson, rape), which is sown in wheat, and for linseed, which is sown in strips amongst and round other crops, mostly gram,—it is hard to assign separate and specific areas. Outturn.—The outturn is still a moot-point, and nothing but a series of experiments will probably set the question at rest. It is not only what can be, but what is, the average yield. It is difficult to learn by enquiry, and facts are assiduously concealed from the inquirer. The farmers and cultivators will not, or fear to make a disclosure. Taking a ten years' average price, the value of the whole outturn is said to be pot t. 1,460 3cres. 1,907 2,070 3]