The Imperial Gazetteer of India (Volume 4 (1885))

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1885. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... transferable, and subject to a moderate rent, which is liable to enhancement from time to time. There are a few exceptions in favour of Idkhirdj lands, or grants held either rent-free or at a very low rental. Manure is nowhere commonly used. Irrigation is only practised in the tract under the hills inhabited by the Kacharis, who are very industrious in leading the streams through artificial channels over their rice-fields, and frequently combine with one another to effect this operation on a large scale. Rupit lands are cultivated continuously with the sdli rice crop; but pharinghatl lands, which generally bear two crops in the year, are occasionally allowed to lie fallow. There is abundance of cultivable waste in all parts of the District; but the heavy grass jungle and forest with which it is now overgrown would be very expensive to clear. There are no present indications among the people towards the growth of a distinct class of daylabourers, neither possessing nor renting land. Indeed, the tendency appears to be in the opposite direction. Those who have no land hire themselves out by the month as labourers on the tea-gardens, and soon save enough money to buy a pair of bullocks and rent a small patch of land. The rate of wages and the price of food-grains have both risen about three-fold within the last twenty years. In 1880-81, an ordinary labourer received from 6d. to 8d. a day. Agricultural labourers are paid in kind, and frequently live in the houses of their employers. But labour of all kinds is extremely scarce. The inhabitants have a passion for cultivating their own plots of land, and a short period of work on a teagarden furnishes them with the capital necessary to purchase a pair of bullocks and the few implements required. In 1881, common rice was sel...