Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/223

CHAP. IX.] local conditions. Where the peasantry were

backward and the population scanty, or where the villages were situated in obscure nooks, he left the old usage of a fixed lump payment per plough undisturbed. In many other places he introduced the system of metayership or sharing of the actual produce. For this there were three rates: (i) Where the crop depended on rainfall, the State took one-half of it. (ii) Where agriculture depended on well-irrigation the share of the State was one-third in the case of grain, and from ⅓ to ½ in the case of grape, sugar-cane, anise, plantain, pea-wort, and other special and high-priced crops requiring laborious watering and length of culture. (iii) Where the field was irrigated from canals (pát), the proportion of the revenue to the crop varied, being sometimes higher and sometimes lower than in lands irrigated from wells.

His third method of revenue settlement was the elaborate and complex one of Northern India. The standard or maximum Government share was one-fourth of the total produce, whether grain or pot-herb, fruit or seed. The revenue at the fixed rate of so many rupees per bigha was assessed and collected after considering the quantity and quality of the crop from seed-time