Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/104

 ;

BAyxu.

94

In 1872, the measurements of a regular settlement gave the following results



—Acres

cultivated,

579,663

or recently abandoned,

fallow



186,521 ; cultivable but uncultivated, 717,677; barren waste, 954,436. In 1878-79 (the latest year for which figures are available), the cultivated area was returned at

582,348 acres; cultivable, 723,284

and uncultivable, 1,146,312 acres; total area assessed for Government revenue, 2,451,944 acres, or 3831 square miles, out of a In Bannu Proper (the country of the total area of 3868 square miles. Bannuchis), every cultivable acre is under the plough, and the call upon the soil is incessant. The free use of manure and inundations from the fertilizing Kurram enable the same fields to bear two harvests, acres;

year after year,

— wheat or barley

The same

summer

in the early

and sugar-cane, with a

cotton, Indian corn,

little



millets, pulses,

rice, in

the autumn.

crops, excepting rice, form the staples of cultivation in all

District. Wheat and barley are sown in October or November, and reaped in April or May cotton is sown in April or May; millets, pulses, and Indian corn are sown in July and August. The autumn harvest continues throughout November. Next in fertility

parts of the



to the

Bannu

valley are the lands found in the low-lying bed of the

But agri14 miles across. to year upon the

Indus, which in places measures about culture here

precarious,

is

caprice of the river

when

and depends from year in

Villages which have thousands

flood.

of acres under cultivation one year, will next year often have hundreds only, or

none

at

Such land

all.

is

termed kacha.

of wheat and barley are peculiarly fine

summer



Its

spring crops

but as the low-lying lands

and high lands are often

become submerged by

the

also eroded, only from

15 to 20 per cent, of the kacha area produces

floods,

any autumn crop, and that mostly bdjrd. Beyond the high eastern The bank of the Indus there is very little cultivation indeed. Acres cultivated area may be thus classified in respect of irrigation irrigated by cuts from the Kurram and Tochi or Gambi'la, 99,212; subject to ditto by cuts from the Indus, 11,889; ditto by wells, 1367 inundation from the Indus, 54,511; dependent on the local rainfall, 412,684. The irrigated area in 1878-79 (the latest year for which returned at 155,552 acres, of which statistics are available) was 34,552 were irrigated by Government, and 121,000 by private works. returned as The acreage under the principal crops in 1882-83

—



follows



— Rice, 999

{jodr), 9088,

barley,

acres



46,236



gram, 69,875

sugar-cane, 4329; oil-seeds, tables,

559

wheat, 269,932

and Panicum spicatum

acres.

The

approximately returned





other

pulses,

938; drugs and

agricultural stock in

as

millets.

{bdjrd), 134,261

under;

— Cows

9793

spices,

Sorghum vulgare



maize, 27,391 cotton,

473; and vege-

the District in 1879

and

horses, 2620; ponies, 4S1; donkeys, 18,478; sheep



8293

bullocks,

and

is

127,609;

goats, -71,744