Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/326

 318 LUC The expenses of barvesting vary. The luunhár reaper (lahna, a sheaf) gets one out of every twenty-four or thirty (tisauri) sheaves in the high- class crops, and every thirteenth sheaf (bárabwán, terahwán) in pulses. But for the latter the payment is sometimes one in every thirteen panse- ris of the thrashed grain. And for corn, if grain be taken, it is not more than oue ser per maund, or one in forty instead of one in thirty maunds, taking the lowest rate of payment in shcaves. Indebtedness of the cultivator.--The cultivator is generally in a poor way, though in some estatcs he is better off than in others. His indebted- ness is almost universal, and he gets little help from liis landlord. The latter will advance him money for the purchase of seed or plant, but he will not fail to take interest for it. The high prices of the last years, however, have done much for his benefit, and it is said his indebtedness is diminishing. But though much could be done for his improvement and much for his land by extending irrigation and applying more capital, his prospects do not seem very hopeful. His rent is high and still rises, his holding is small, and, as the population increases, will still get smaller. The cultivators, the asámis, are the villeins of the middle ages, and the lord of the manor reckons them amongst his goods and chattels; they are adscripti glebo. In a transfer of his domain he includes them. It is an unneighbourly and unfriendly action to entice them away; and if one of them leaves he is said to abscond, to fly. There is in this a trace of the colonization and conquest of the country by the ancestors of the zamin- dar. He found the cultivator of the soil on bis domain, or he brought him into his village and settled him, and gave him land to cultivate, and built him a house to live in. The houses are all his property, and go with the land. So long as the occupant cultivates his land and pays him rent, he demands no other bire. But from the non-agriculturist classes the parja, his subjects—he takes parjávat. If they are manufacturers, who take their wares to other inarkets, he takes money. If they are village artizans, who work for the remaining inbabitants of the villages, he takes in kind. As from the Julábas and Bihnas, the weavers and cotton corders, a small sum of money (kargáha); but from Chainárs a pair of shoes a year, and his cattle-gear made and repaired. From the village carpen- ters (barhai), a plough in the year, and his implements mended for nothing. From the garariya or herdsman a blanket. But the trades are now at a very low ebb, and the taking of this cess has been discouraged ; it has been looked upon as a kind of tax imposed upon industry. Rents in Lucknow seem to be tolerably stationary just at present. From 1870 to 1874 there was a great number of ejectments and rent- raisings, but things seem to have settled down somewhat, though needy landlords are constantly on the watch to raise rents, or eject the tenants. Under the law they cannot do so without paying the tenant for improve- ments in theshape of wellsand tanks made during the thirty years preceding the attempt to evict. The tenants cannot claim compensation for their dwelling-houses, which become useless if they are evicted from their fields. They are still therefore much at their landlord's mercy, and they have submitted to rather extortionate rent-raising.