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— BAH

144

before harvest. It is then that the last year's stock of grain stored in the dheri begins to run low, and the ryot finds himself tempted to run up an account at the Banian's.

Instead of doing this, however, he borrows a sum of money as lip, the conditions being that the loan should be repaid at harvest time in grain at the market price of the time, with five or ten sers of grain per rupee extra by way of interest. These are very stringent conditions, considering the short period for which the loan is made." Several matters bearing upon the condition of the people may be briefly There is little immigration into the district as a whole, but the more thinly peopled parganas have received a considerable influx since annexation, more, however, as the result of peace and order than from any voluntary effort of population elsewhere to relieve the pressure upon land, many of those who were emigrants in former days having now returned. vide the accompanying table, under heading Prices are rapidly rising, " prices," giving the rates for the last ten years. Famines have been referred to in the Fyzabad article. Bahraich has suffered from flood, drought, cattle-disease and fever, very considerably during the last ten years. The remarks made on this subject in the Kheri article apply equally to this the adjoining district. Floods are common, for Bahraich has the heaviest average rainfall of any district in Oudh except Kheri. In Bahraich tahsil its average for the last nine years has been 47 inches, but it has sometimes had 79 and 74 inches as in 1870 and 1871, and sometimes 31 or 32 inches as in 1868 and 1873. indicated.

'

Tested by the character of the agriculture, the condition of the people cannot be regarded as prosperous. The better crops gricu ure. requiring more laborious cultivation and repaying it by a heavier return are conspicuous by their absence. Further on are given crop returns borrowed from the settlement report.

The entire cultivated area is 751,000 acres. Allowing for the fact that about one-fifth of the land is double-cropped, there will be each year almost exactly 900,000 acres of crops sown and reaped. Of this vast area only 8,200 are planted with garden crops as follows

Cotton ... Tobacco Sugarcane Vegetables

...

...

...

2,900

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

700 2,500 2,100 8,200

This is less than one per cent., while the proportion in other districts reaches four per cent. The cultivation consists mainly of rice, barley, They require little labour either in ploughIndian-corn, and mixed crops. Cultivation is of a perfunctory nature ; the out-turn is ing or irrigating. poor, the ca|pital invested in agricultural improvements, such as wells, is small the people consequently are not able to bear hard times, to resist the stress of bad seasons, or bear up against the burthen of heavier rents by the application of increased industry. There is little steady industry in