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 RAE 207 Besides bad seasons the cultivator has for the past five years suffered much from cattle disease, which annually visits some part or other of the district. Cattle disease is just now raging in the villages on the Sai. No precautions are taken against the disease ; about a third of the cattle attacked escaped. In 1874, land which had been fallow for two or three years has been again brought under cultivation. Sugarcane and garden crops are on the increase, but wheat does not seem to be ousting barley or peas; jarhan dhán is more extensively grown of late years. Poppy and jethwa sáwán are much more extensively cultivated, and the custom is spreading of transplanting the makra or mindwa crop instead of sowing it. This custom ensures a more plentiful and a much earlier crop, but it is dependent on well irrigation till the rains commence. The rate of interest in the district is norninally 24 per cent. per annum, but the poorer cultivators pay considerably more. Mortgages of groves, sír lands, and of shares in pattidari villages are very common, but sales are not so. Interest I think had a tendency to fall some years ago, but the hard times have caused it to rise again. I regret to be obliged to state that nearly every asámi, who within the last six years has constructed a pakka well in my neighbourhood, has been ruined or next to ruined. With reference to weaving, I am informed that the weaving of finer cloths, which were formerly in great demand, has almost entirely stopped, but the coarser cloths are still manufactured as generally as formerly, not only for the local markets but also for exports. This industry, however, is I think, doomed, especially now that English cloths are becoming so common and so cheap, and are being so generally used at the dye factories, Within the last four or five years the price of plough-bullocks has risen about 75 per cent., there is however no scarcity of bullocks, for the cattle bazars continue well supplied, but owing to the high prices, the mahájans ruinous interest, and the frequent recurrence of the cattle disease, cultiva- tors possess very inferior draught animals, which, with hard work and insufficient fodder, are not likely to improve in their hands. Tenures. It is impossible to do more than to indicate the features of property in this district, for the settlement and census report, which are the main sources of information, concerned themselves solely with the old district which differs entirely from the new one. Of the 1,350 square miles in the old district 422 have been taken away, and 711 square miles of new territory have been added. Still the main features of the tenures have not been nuch altered, the district remains taluqdari, although the Kanhpuria clan owns a much larger portion of the new than of the old territory. There arc altogether about 1,198 villages covering 1,279 square milos, the property of 100 large owners, and 537 villages covering 460 square miles, the property of about 11,000 small proprietors, mostly Bais and Kankpurias. The proprietary rights in the district of Rae Bareli are very interesting from a historical as well as economical point of view. Out of 1,735