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60
MODERN HYDERABAD.

years, and that division has suffered less from drought, plague, and famine than Marathwara. While the percentage of increase of population during the past ten years has been in Telingana 24.0, in Marathwara it has been only 16.4. The writers of the special articles that are printed with the Census are of opinion that practically all the cultivated area in Marathwara has now come under cultivation, and that this division is already supporting a population much nearer to the maximum capacity of its agriculture than Telingana.

Rice cultivation, which has the capacity to support a proportionately larger population than that of any other crop, is inconsiderable in Marathwara, and the scanty and uncertain rainfall there is opposed to a rapid growth of population. Large areas, and, as a rule, the more fertile ones, have been transferred to the production of non-food crops, which bring higher prices. Between the years 1902 and 1910, the area under cotton in the State increased by 21 per cent., and most of this cotton land is in Marathwara.

The Census suggests the substitution of more paying crops, improved methods of cultivation, and the establishment of new indus-