232 NASIK. is invariably used for all garden crops, but rarely for others. Over 47,000 acres are irrigated, the cost per acre varying from 25. to £10. Irrigation is generally practised where water is obtainable near the surface, and where a dam can be thrown across the streams and rivers. The main works are the Pálkler, Vadáli, and Ojhar Támbat canals, the first-named being newly built at a cost of £14,872. Out of 3,389,838 acres, the total area of Government cultivable land, 2,258,197 acres, or 66 61 per cent, were taken up for cultivation in 1881-82; of these, 340,393 acres were fallow or under grass. Of the remaining 1,924,213 acres under actual cultivation (6409 acres of which were twice cropped), grain occupied 1,310,643, or 68'11 per cent. ; pulses, 154,762, or 8.04 per cent. ; oil-seeds, 168,876, or 8.77 per cent ; fibres, 23,862, or 1'24 per cent.; and miscellaneous crops, 266,070 acres, or 13.82 per cent. Bájra is the staple food of the people. Vineyards are found in Násik and Chánder Sub-divisions. In localities where there is good black soil, wheat, cotton, gram, and tuner, and where water is available, sugar-cane, grapes, figs, guavas, and plantains are grown. Potatoes were introduced into the District about 1837, and though at first disliked by the people, are now in request. On poor soil joár and bájra are cultivated. In 1882-83 the agricultural stock amounted to 64,080 ploughs, 14,361 carrying carts, 11,719 riding carts, 202,883 bullocks, 195,372 cows, 56,663 buffaloes, 12,640 horses, 3877 asses, 216,749 sheep and goats. Natural Calamities. --- The great Durgadevi famine, lasting from 1396 to 1407, is said to have caused as much injury in Násik as in the Southern Deccan; and the memory of it has never been obliterated. Famines are also locally recorded as having occurred in 1460, 1520, and 1629, but the severest of which record remains was the famine of 1791-92. Liberal remissions by the Peshwá, the piohibition of grain exportation, and the regulation of prices, alleviated the misery. In 1802-04, the ravages of the Pindáris caused such scarcity, that a pound of grain is said to have cost is. 4d. Ten thousand people died of hunger and its incidental maladies. The scarcity of 1876-77 caused great distress. Special measures of relief were taken, and at one period nearly 18,000 persons were employed on roads. In the villages two kinds of tickets were given to the people, tin and paper. The holders of tin tickets were allowed full rations of one pound of cooked bread and pulse, while to paper ticket-holders a smaller quantity was issued. Children were given half a pound. The tickets were issued at the relief works up to half-past seven in the morning, the late comers getting paper tickets. The total expenditure on famine relief during the continuance of the scarcity was reckoned at £42,967. Every now and then in the District a frost destroys or damages such crops as plantains, grapes, etc., and hardly a year
