92 PAR prepared as carefully as circumstances bave permitted, I estimate the increase to the cultivated area at 17,900 acres or 3-35 per cent. Much of the land, which the wily zamindars, with rueful countenances, earnestly assured the assessing officers was sterile and fit for nothing, has since been worked up and cleaned, and is now in many places bearing luxuriant crops. By the time the period of the present settlement expires, there will be ample margin whence to correspondingly increase the imperial demand. In cases of large tracts of jungle or waste, the taluqdar or zamin- dar often sells the land in patches to the highest bidder. The purchaser is generally a banker or other small capitalist, who at once sets to work and rapidly clears the land. Where the plots of waste are small and sparse, the landlord usually lets it out on clearing leases, charged with a nominal rent for at least three years. Thiese leases are almost always taken by the more skilled cultivators. The average cost of clearing brushwood or thorn jungle may be set down at from Rs. 6 to Rs. 10 per acre; while that of grass jungle seldom exceeds from Rs. 2 to Rs. 5 the acre. When the khasra survey was completed there were 76,008 acres under wood. This area has since been extended to about 85,499 acres, or 12:48 per cent, a result we may likewise hail with satisfaction. Rents. Rents bave steadily risen in this district since the introduction of British rule, and still have a tendency to rise. It has been asserted that, if the extraneous items, such as "batta," " bhent," and other such nawabi imposts, be taken into calculation, we shall find that as a matter of fact, rents have not risen. Now this question has been carefully gone into by the settlement officer, and the deliberate conclusion to which he arrived, taking each and every such regularly realized exaction into con- sideration into account, is that rents under our rules have risen and are rising. This was attributable, in his opinion, to the enhanced value of land, and to competition. He took the papers of 100 villages, which were prepared before annexation, and carefully abstracted their contents. Comparing these contents with jamabandis drawn out since the district came under survey, he found that against a former average rent-rate of Re. 1-10-1 per bigha, taken on the whole 100 villages, we have now (i.e., in 1868), an average rent-rate of Rs. 3-1-1 per bágha. But, it may be urged, these results hardly adınit of fair comparison, the bigha in the latter case being the standard bigha of ths of an acre, and in the former case, the variable village bigha. This difficulty may, I think, be got over by bear- ing in mind the following facts, viz. :- Of the villages selected, twenty-five pertain to each tahsil in the district. It has been found, by actual experiment, that in three out of the four tahsils, the village bigha is actually larger than the standard bígha. In the case of seventy-five villages, therefore, the nawabi rent-rate falls on a larger bígha than the present standard bigha, while in twenty-five villages only does it fall on a smaller one, the difference, in either case, not exceeding four biswas. It follows then, that unquestionably rents are higher than formerly, and that land has acquired a bigher market value.
- In the old district.
