1.1. Agriculture

The staple crops of the District are cereals, gram, and cotton. Of these, gram occupies the largest area; and next in point of acreage come wheat, and the two millets known as joar and bajra.The seasons are those prevalent throughout Bundelkhand,—the kharif or autumn crops, sown in June or August, consist chiefly of millets and cotton; the rabi or spring crops, sown in November or December, are mainly gram and wheat.

1.2. Natural Calamities

Drought is the great danger to be apprehended [Page 100] in Jalaun. Famine or scarcity from that cause occurred in 1783, in 1833, in 1837, and in 1848. The last important drought was that in August and September of 1868.

2.1. Agriculture

The ordinary soil of Jaunpur is a mixture of vegetable mould, clay, and sand; but in old river-beds and the basins of temporary lakes, a rich black alluvial deposit, answering to the mar of Bundelkhand, may occasionally be found. The whole District is one wide expanse of cultivation, with scarcely an available acre untilled. The harvests are those common to the rest of Upper India. The kharif or autumn crops include rice, Indian corn, cotton, bajra,joar, and moth. They are sown in June, immediately after the first rain of the season, and reaped from September to November. The rabi or spring crops are sown in the autumn months, and reaped from March to April. They consist of wheat, barley, oats, peas, and other pulses. Irrigation is carried on from wells, tanks, ponds, and jhils.Although a certain rotation of crops is observed, yet (except for the cultivation of [Page 156] sugarcane) the intentional leaving land fallow for an entire year is almost unknown. The mode of cultivation is very simple. Seeds are almost always sown broadcast in land ploughed by an iron spike set between two pieces of wood, and serving both for share and coulter. A wooden board drawn by bullocks does duty for harrow and roller. The quantity of land taken up by the autumn crops varies with the earliness of the rains and other contingencies; as a rule, about one-third of the cultivable area is sown for the kharif. Near the towns, almost all land is tilled for both harvests; but in the low-lying rice lands, and in indigo or sugar-cane plantations, only one crop a year is grown. The best soils are selected for wheat, and barley ranks next in popular estimation. Sugar yields the greatest profit, but it requires much care and plentiful manuring; while the land in which it is grown must always be left fallow for six months or a year. Indigo cultivation on a large scale dates only from the establishment of British rule, and twenty years ago an area of about 14,000 acres was sown with the plant.

2.2. Natural Calamities

The Gumti is liable to sudden freshets during the rainy season, owing to the high banks which it has piled up at its entrance into the Ganges, and which act as dams to prevent the prompt outflow of its flooded waters. These inundations extend to its tributary the Sai. Much damage was thus effected in 1774; but the greatest recorded flood took place in September 1871, when the river rose more than 23 feet in fourteen days, and swept away 4000 houses in the city, besides 9000 others in villages along its banks. On the other hand, Jaunpur has been comparatively free from drought. In 1770, the District suffered like all its neighbours; but in 1783, and in 1803, the scarcity did not rise to the point of famine.

4.1. Agriculture

Jhansi, in the nature of its soil, the character of its people, the poor means of irrigation, and the want of good communications, is perhaps worse off than any other District in the North-Western Provinces, except its still more unfortunate neighbour, Lalitpur. In the best seasons, its produce is only just sufficient to feed its scanty and scattered population, and droughts or floods expose it to the greatest [Page 223] hardships. The principal kharif or rain crops are—joar (millet), which in 1881 occupied 93,975 acres; cotton, grown on 34,074 acres; and bajra (another millet), on 10,893 acres. There were also 21,400 acres under til, an oil-seed, and 21,300 acres under a kind of pulse known as kodo. The total area of the rain crops was 232,054 acres, of which 26,080 acres were devoted to fibres, dye-stuffs, and oilseeds. The rabi or cold-weather crops covered an area of 182,058 acres, of which 3228 acres were cultivated with oil-seeds. The chief rabi products were—wheat, 1 13,779 acres; gram, 45,348 acres; and barley, 1374 acres. There were also 8882 acres employed in raising the al dye, procured from the root of the Morinda citrifolia, a rain crop, which is only dug up every third year. It is commercially the most important product, and is grown on the best land. The town of Mauranipur has long been famous for the manufacture of a red cloth called kharua, which is dyed from this root. The colour imparted by al is fixed by alum, and is permanent. In Jhansi, as in other parts of Bundelkhand, the al is really what enables the cultivators in certain villages to pay their rent; and in many years food would be scarce but for the importation of grain in return for the exports of the dye. The destructive kans grass formerly proved as great a pest here as elsewhere in Bundelkhand. but it has now been almost eradicated. Although the ordinary food production of Jhansi is barely adequate to the necessities of the people, the District has occasional years of exceptionally favourable rainfall, in which a considerable exportation of grain takes place.

4.2. Natural Calamities

Jhansi is specially exposed to blights, droughts, floods, hailstorms, epidemics, and their natural consequence, famine. Even in favourable years, the consumption of the District is estimated to exceed its production by one-fifth. This estimate represents the fact that the food produce of Jhansi in ordinary seasons scarcely exceeds the food demand, while it is considered that scarcity may be feared every five years on an average. The famines of 1783, 1833, 1837, and 1847 were particularly severe.

5.1. Agriculture

The soils belong to four classes—light, medium, black, and alluvial, with subordinate varieties. The alluvial or batha land is chiefly found near the Vatrak river, and is a rich garden soil. In 1880-81, 371,793 acres, or 76.99 per cent, of the Government cultivable land, were taken up for tillage, and 19,421 acres were fallow or under grass. Grain crops occupied 304,253 acres, or 81.83 per cent.; pulses, 31,199 acres, or 8.39 per cent.; oil-seeds, 5348 acres, or 1.43 per cent.; fibres, 4662 acres, or 1.24 per cent., of which 4424 acres were under cotton; miscellaneous crops, 17,640 acres, or 4.74 per cent., of which 11,754 acres were under tobacco. Spiked millet, bajra (Pennisetum typhoideum), the staple grain crop, occupied 104,920 acres in 1881-82, or 27.4 per cent, of the total area (382,425 acres) under cultivation in that year. In 1881-82, sugar-cane covered 1209 acres; indigo, 185 acres; and other dye-stuffs, 2626 acres.

5.2. Natural Calamities

A severe famine took place in 1791-92—rain fell only once that year; in 1813-14, there were only two showers of rain throughout the year; in 1825, the later rains failed, and remissions of land revenue to the amount £16,198 were granted.

6.1. Agriculture

The land of the District varies from a poor sandy and stony soil to a rich deep black loam; the tract lying along the banks of the river Dhon is noted for its richness and power of retaining moisture. The sandy soils are unsuited for cotton, wheat, grain, and other cold-weather crops, and yield only the common varieties of millet and pulse; but they are nevertheless, in the larger villages, well ploughed, manured, and weeded. In 1881, the area of uncultivable land in the District was 761 square miles; of cultivated, 4076 square miles; and of cultivable waste, 920 square miles.

Among the agricultural products of the Districts, Indian millet or joar (Sorghum vulgare), grown both as a rainy-season and a fair-weather crop, held in 1881-82 the first place with 949,385 acres, or 53.3 per cent, of the area under actual cultivation. It constitutes the chief food of the people; and, except in seasons of unusual abundance, the whole crop is consumed in the District. The other cereals of importance are, spiked millet or bajra (Pennisetum typhoideum), occupying 136,924 acres, and wheat, covering 97,746 acres.

By 1882-83, the area under cotton had further increased to 351,844 acres. Castor-oil, linseed, safflower, and sesamum or til are grown and exported, safflower in considerable quantities. But little rice is produced, and what is grown is of an inferior variety. In some parts of the District, a careless system of tillage is followed, portions of many fields being allowed to lie waste and become choked with grass.

6.2. Natural Calamities

Owing to its uncertain rainfall, Kaladgi is very subject to failure of crops and consequent scarcity of grain. Like the rest of the Deccan, this District was at the beginning of the 15th century left by the great famine of 1396-1406 almost utterly waste and deserted; and in 1791, it again suffered grievously from the want of rain—still remembered by the people as the Skull Famine, the ground being covered with the skulls of the unburied dead.