1.1. Agriculture

In the Doab, the soil is generally rich and fertile, but elsewhere its productiveness is much impaired by the prevalence of ravines. Their detrimental influence extends far beyond the area actually occupied by their sloping sides; for wherever any declivity begins, the surface soil is washed away, leaving scarcely enough mould for seed to germinate in; while nearer to the actual declivity a belt of sandy loam occurs, where the produce is always poor and uncertain. The khadir or low-lying silt, however, which stretches between the ravines and the river-sides, is usually rich and fruitful. The course of agriculture does not differ from that which is common throughout the whole upper Gangetic plain. The crops are divided into the kharif or autumn harvest and the rabi or spring harvest. The kharif crops [Page 64] are sown after the first rain in June, and reaped in October or November. They consist of bajra, joar, moth, and other food-grains ; and cotton, which is not ready for picking till November. The rabi crops are sown in October or November, and reaped in March and April. They consist of wheat, barley, oats, peas and other pulses. Manure is used, where it can be obtained, for both harvests; land is allowed to lie fallow whenever the cultivator can afford it; and sometimes from paucity of labourers. As a rule, the same soil is not planted for both spring and autumn harvests in a single year, but occasionally a crop of early rice is taken off a plot in August, and some other seed sown in its place for the spring reaping. Rotation of crops is practised in its simplest form ; autumn staples alternate with spring, wheat and barley being substituted for cotton and bajra, while gram takes the place of joar.

1.2. Natural Calamities

The District suffers much in periods of [Page 65] drought, as it depends largely on natural rainfall for its water supply. Famines from this cause occurred in 1783, in 1813, in 1819, and in 1838.

2.1. Agriculture

The two principal varieties of soil are the black and the white. In many parts of the District, both kinds occur within the limits of the same village; but on the whole, the black soil is found chiefly towards the west, and the light-coloured soil in the east. With the help of water and manure, the light-coloured soil is very fertile; and though during the dry weather, especially where subject to traffic, it wears into a loose fine sand, yet after rain has fallen, it again becomes tolerably compact and hard. Two other varieties of soil are less generally distributed; an alluvial deposit of the Sabarmati river, the most fertile soil in the District, easily irrigated, and holding water at the depth of [Page 89] a few feet below the surface ; and in the north-east of the District, a red stony soil, like that of Belgaum in the south of the Presidency.

As compared with the other British Districts of Guzerat, an important peculiarity of Ahmadabad is the great extent' of land held by the class of large landholders called talukdars, who own the lands of 387 villages, or 46-47 per cent. of the whole number in the District. Their possessions comprise the border land between Guzerat Proper and the peninsula of Kithiawir. Historically, this tract forms 'the coast, where the debris of the old Rajput Principalities of that peninsula was worn and beaten by the successive waves of Musalman and Maratha invasion.' But these estates are part of Kathiawar rather than of Guzerat. Their proprietors are Kathiawar chiefs, and their communities have the same character as the smaller States of the western peninsula. The talukdari villages are held by both Hindus and Musalmans. Among the Hindus are the representatives of several distinct classes.

As in other parts of Guzerat, there are in Ahmadabad two sets of agricultural operations-one ending in the early or kharif, lasting from July to November; and the other in the late or rabi harvest, from November to March. The cultivating season is generally considered to begin immediately after the first fall of rain in June or July. A month or two before this, however, manure is carted to the field, and left there exposed to the action of the sun; and after a fall of rain, the manure is spread over the ground and ploughed in. The plough used is of the most simple construction, costing from 6s. to 8s. After two ploughings, each to the depth of 4 or 5 inches, the ground is considered ready for the seed, which is sown by a drill plough. Several English ploughs have been distributed in the District, and they are appreciated by the cultivators, as the land is found to derive lasting benefit from deeper ploughing. The advantages of a free use of manure are admitted by the husbandmen ; but, at the same time, as a great part of the cowdung is burnt as fuel, the ground is but scantily manured. The District is not favourable for direct river irrigation, as most of the rivers flow in deep, narrow channels with sandy beds. At the same time, there are many spots along the course of the Sabarmati, Khari, and Bhadhar rivers, where, by means of a frame on the banks, water is raised in leather bags. Well water is also used to a considerable extent. The irrigation from tanks and reservoirs is almost confined to the early part of the cold season, when water is required to bring the rice crops to maturity.

2.2. Natural Calamities

During the past two centuries and a half, fourteen years have been memorable for natural calamities. Of these, three were in the 15th, six in the 18th, and seven in the 19th centuries. In the 15th century, the year 1629 is said to have been a season of great famine; and 1650 and 1686 were years of drought and scarcity. In the 18th century, 1718 and 1747 were years of scarcity, and 1771 was one of pestilence. The years 1714 and 1739 were marked by disastrous floods in the Sabarmati. In 1755, extraordinarily heavy rains did considerable damage to the city of Ahmadabad. The famine, which reached its height in 1790-91, and from having occurred in Samvat 1847, is known by the name sattalo, lasted through several seasons.

3.1. Agriculture

The soil varies much in different parts of the District. Towards the north and east, it is as a rule a rich black loam; while in the hilly parts towards the west, it is frequently light and sandy. By reason of this variation in soil, it is said that a cultivator with ten acres of land in the north of the District is better off than one with a holding twice as large in the south. Though a single pair of bullocks cannot till enough land to support a family, many cultivators have only one pair, and manage to get their fields ploughed by borrowing and lending bullocks among each other. Garden lands are manured; but, as a rule, for ordinary dry crops nothing is done to enrich the soil. Cultivators are employed in ploughing in March, April, and May; in sowing the early kharif crops in July; and in harvesting the early crops from November to February. There are no tanks for irrigation, but there is a good deal of irrigation from wells, especially in the northern parts. The District, though possessing in many parts a fertile soil and a fair supply of water, not unfrequently suffers from drought.

Ahmadnagar District is not subject to blights or floods. Occasionally wheat is affected by a disease called tambira. Under this disease, as the name implies, the grain turns a copper colour and withers away. Though the country is liable to drought, scarcity, deserving the name of a famine, has seldom occurred since the District came into the hands of the British. In 1791, 1792, and 1794, there was much misery owing to the increase in the price of grain, occasioned by the disturbed state of the country.

4.1. Agriculture

Allahabad is one of the Districts where cultivation has nearly reached its utmost limit, very little waste land fit for tillage being now left uncultivated. The kharif, or autumn crops, are sown in June, on the first appearance of the rains, and reaped in October and November. Food-stuffs are the staples of this harvest, the principal crops being rice, pulses,joar and bajra (millets). Cotton is sown at the same time, the coarser varieties being picked in November or December, and the finer in April or May. The rabi, or spring crops,' are sown in October and reaped in March or April. They consist of wheat, barley, and other grains. Manure is used for both harvests, wherever it can be obtained.

4.2. Natural Calamities

Famines from drought occurred in Allahabad in 1770, 1783, 1803, 1819, and 1837, and severe scarcities in 1813, 1860-61, 1868-69, and in 1873-74. In the two famines antecedent to British rule, beyond a little gratuitous relief at the capital, no measures appear to have been taken for the relief of the starving multitudes.

5.1. Agriculture

The cultivated area is divided officially, as in other Madras Districts, into 'wet,' 'dry,' and 'garden' lands. Dry land is that on which crops are raised without the help of artificial irrigation. The chief crops are kambu, cholam, ragi, and korra, and these form the staple food of the masses. Wet lands are artificially irrigated, and are exclusively devoted to rice and sugar-cane. 'Garden' lands produce cocoa-nut, betel-leaf, plantains, wheat, tobacco, chillies, turmeric, vegetables and fruits. Manure in some form or other is always applied. Crops are not cultivated in any recognised order.

5.2. Natural Calamities

The earliest famine on record is that of 1792-93. In that year, rice, which is largely produced in Anantapur and other taluks in the District, sold at 4 lbs. for the shilling, and cholam, the staple food of the masses, at 12 lbs. for the shilling.

6.1. Agriculture

Agriculture.-The soil is alluvial throughout, being partly bangar (the old) and partly kachhar (the new deposit), with the transition from the one to the other generally marked by some change of elevation in the surface. The bangar land, although both reh and kankar occur more frequently in it than in the kachhar, is the more fertile of the two. The sub-soil strata are sands and clays, the former sometimes coming to the surface in the patches called balui. Water is met with at a few feet beneath these sandy strata, but owing to the looseness of the soil the wells have to be lined with masonry, to prevent them from falling in. The clays are of three kinds,-the clear grey or bluish grey, called matiari containing but little organic matter; the black clay, called karail, heavy, sticky, very tenacious of moisture, and the most fertile of all the soils of the District; the light clay, called kabsa, contains a saline matter, and forms in fact the transition soil between the raised sandy wastes, on which it always borders, and the heavier clays of the more depressed portions. The waste tracts of the District generally lie on the higher levels, and owe their sterility to the presence of reh, a saline efflorescence which crystallizes on the surface of the soil during the hot months. This usar or reh land can, however, with labour, be reclaimed; for if it be well trenched during the rains, and mixed with uninfected soil, the reh dies out in time, and even after the first year the reclaimed surface will yield a crop of rice. If, however, the surface drainage from the adjoining reh-infected parts be admitted to it, the improving patch rapidly lapses into its original sterility. Much of the present rice land was once, no doubt, usar land; and if the wholesome water were to be drained off them, would at once revert. In some places, extensive beds of kankar (limestone in course of formation) underlie the surface in solid sheets of coherent rock. The thin layers of soil that cover such reefs alternate, according to the season, between parched, dusty plains, and swamps. Agriculture in this District is specially dependent upon a seasonable distribution of the rainfall. The total agricultural population in 1881 was 1,293,089, or 80.6 per cent. of the inhabitants of the District. The two great harvests of the year are the kharif or autumn, and the rabi or spring crop. Including two-crop land, the total area cultivated in 1881-82 was 889,942 acres, the principal crops being as follow: - Kharif-rice, 274,706 acres; arhar, 52,379; Indian corn, 10,550; other food [Page 398] crops, 40,589; sugar-cane, 75,310; indigo, 10,790: total kharif area, 467,389 acres. Rabi-wheat, 17,934 acres; barley, 235,078; wheat and barley mixed, 39,401; barley and gram, 18,641; peas, 87,277; other food crops, 22,055; miscellaneous non-food crops, 12,167: total rabi area, 422,553 acres.

6.2. Natural Calamities

In 1782-83, there was so serious a scarcity that deaths from starvation occurred in the town of Mau, and a mosque and some wells built as relief works in the town of Kopaganj form memorials of the year. Wheat, nevertheless, sold throughout this 'famine' at 14 lbs. for the shilling.