local conditions. Where the peasantry were
Three methods of assessment of land.
backward and the population
scanty, or where the villages
were situated in obscure nooks,
he left the old usage of a fixed lump payment
per plough undisturbed. In many other places
he introduced the system of metayership or
sharing of the actual produce. For this there
were three rates: (i) Where the crop depended on
rainfall, the State took one-half of it. (ii) Where
agriculture depended on well-irrigation the share
of the State was one-third in the case of grain,
and from ⅓ to ½ in the case of grape, sugar-cane,
anise, plantain, pea-wort, and other special and
high-priced crops requiring laborious watering
and length of culture. (iii) Where the field
was irrigated from canals (pát), the proportion of the revenue to the crop varied, being sometimes higher and sometimes lower than in lands
irrigated from wells.
His third method of revenue settlement was the elaborate and complex one of Northern India. The standard or maximum Government share was one-fourth of the total produce, whether grain or pot-herb, fruit or seed. The revenue at the fixed rate of so many rupees per bigha was assessed and collected after considering the quantity and quality of the crop from seed-time
