Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/206

 198 KHE occasionally loans of inferior grain are repaid in the same weight of supe- rior. Advances of grain for food and maintenance are also repaid at the above rates, with but one slight difference which is this; if the tenant borrows grain only for two months prior to the cutting of his harvest, he has generally to repay the loan in kind without interest at the rate ruling at the barvest. For instance, if a tenant borrows 15 sers of wheat valued Re. 1 in February at the rate ruling in that month, he will have to pay wheat of one rupee only at the rate prevailing at the harvest. "Cultivators of sugarcane are mostly in debt. The cultivation of sugarcane is ordinarily commenced and completed with the usurious aid of native bankers, and a single bad season places the cultivator in pecu- niary difficulties from which he finds it most difficult to extricate himself for years. Advances for sugarcane cultivation are generally made from August to January on terms of usury proportioned to the borrower's veed, and on the security of his anticipated crop, and the cultivator gener rally promises to supply saccharine produce to the lender. An agreement is almost always'exacted to pay loss of profits, at varying rates, but generally at Re. 1 per maund for as many maunds as the cultivator fails to deliver at the appointed time, and this is paid of course in addition to the unpaid loan. The account is generally closed in Bhadon (August) and a balance struck against the cultivator, and a contract to deliver ráb of that balance at the next season is implied, even if not expressed. The num- bers of the indebted cultivators of crops other than sugarcane are not increasing, on the contrary they are decreasing since the Nawabi. " The rents in this tahsil are to a great extent paid in money, and the high prices of produce ruling in the reign of British Government, joined with the apparent immunity they now enjoy from the exactious and oppressions of landlords, are favourable to them. In Muhamdi 1) anna. In villages 1 anna, 19 anna. . . .. UY 1 anna.”
 * The following is the rate of wages paid to labourers :