Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/268

 — BENARES.

258

and fortified, which afforded them protection in the days of Maratha or Afghan incursions; while in the more peaceful lower region the population

equally distributed over the cultivated

is

being gathered together in large

fraction

Benares has a palace opposite

at

southern

or

Ramnagar,

2

only a small

soil,

The Maharaja

Buddhist

of

on the

miles above Benares,

Colossal

side.

cities.

remains

exist

at

Sarnath.

The 1946

villages

and towns are thus returned

in point of

popula-

859 contain less than two hundred inhabitants; 665 from two to five hundred; 324 from five hundred to a thousand; 82 from one tion



two thousand; 10 from two to three thousand; 4 from three to thousand ; i from ten to fifteen thousand ; and i upwards of a hundred thousand inhabitants. As regards occupation, the male population is grouped by the Census Report of 1881 into the following six main to

five

classes:

—

(i) Professional class, including civil

Government

servants,

and the learned

and lodging-house keepers,

servants, inn

and military

etc.,

4174;

including merchants, traders, carriers, etc, 12,220

class,

officer.®,

professions, 12,536; (2) domestic

commercial

(3)

(4) agricultural



and pastoral class, including gardeners, 145,247 (5) industrial class, including manufacturers and artisans, 60,899 (6) indefinite and nonproductive (consisting of 36,390 general labourers and 179,319 male

1

children and unspecified),- 215,709.

Agriculture

.

— Benares

District has the smallest area of

North-Western Provinces proper, except the

Tarffi;

its

any

in the

total extent

1881 at 998 square miles, of which 741 are and only 69^6 returned as still available for cultivation. Most of the soil consists of a rich clay, more or less mixed with sand, and usually very fertile. The course of tillage is that common to the whole upper basin of the Ganges. The kharif or autumn crops are sown after the first rain in June, and harvested in October and November. Rice may even be gathered in August, but cotton does not ripen for picking till February. Bdjrd, joar., and other common

being returned in cultivated,

food-grains form the remaining staples of this harvest.

The

spring crops are sown in October or November, and reaped in or April.

The

They

consist of wheat, barley, oats, peas,

harvests are a

khand winter,

Districts,

little earlier

owing

and the

early

to the

in

and other

rabi

or

March pulses.

Benares than in the Do^b and Rohil-

dampness and comparative warmth of the

commencement

of the rainy season.

The

chief

crops of the District comprise sugar-cane, Indian corn, barley, wheat,

Moth and pdt-san (hemp) are sown with other Manure is employed, where obtainable, for and land lies fallow whenever the cultivator can afford it The

peas, indigo,

and

rice.

crops, but not separately.

both crops,

same

field is

seldom planted

for

two harvests within a single

year, the

chief exception being in the case of rice lands, which often bear a