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BHANDARA.

364

Bhaxdara,

the District capital (11,150), Pauxi (9773), Tumsar and Mohari (5142). Towns of 1000 to 5000 inhabitants number 109 from 200 to 1000, 916 villages containing fewer than 200 viz.

(7388),





inhabitants, 587.

The

four large towns constitute the only munici-

As regards the occupations of the people, the Census Report divides the male population into the following six main classes (1) jialities.



Professional class, including fessions,

6735

j

(2)

Government

domestic servants,

officers

etc.,

2735

including merchants, general dealers, carriers,



—

and the learned pro(3) etc.,

commercial 4441



(4)

class,

agri-

and pastoral class, including gardeners, 146,025 (5) manufacturing, artisan, and other industrial classes, 59,687; (6) indefinite and non-productive (comprising 3575 labourers, and 117,613 unspecified, cultural

including children), 121,188.

—

Agriculture Of the total area of 3922 square miles in 1880-81, only 1230 are cultivated, and of the portion lying waste, 1183 are returned as cultivable; 301,045 acres of the cultivated land are irrigated, entirely by private enterprise. The Government assessment is at the rate of.

13 id. per acre of cultivated land, or 6gd. on the cultivable land. Rice constitutes the staple crop, no less than 468,431 acres being devoted to this purpose ; wheat, 80,686 acres ; other food-grains, Sugar-cane is also Oil-seeds occupy 56,966 acres. 307,803. extensively cultivated. The beginning and the end of the rains are the sowing times. The chief autumn crop is rice; the chief spring crops are wheat and gram. In northern Bhandara, as soon as the rice harvest has been garnered, the husbandmen cut the dam, let the water out of the tank, and sow wheat or linseed in the bed ; this appears the only means they have of raising a dr" crop in the District. They sow their rice in three different ways Bold is simple broadcast sowing kanrak, is sowing broadcast in a prepared field, after steeping the unhusked rice in hot water, and then leaving it to germinate (this mode is only adopted when the sowing happens to be late) ; the third mode is called nond a nursery of young rice is first formed in a well.



,

—

manured piece of ground, and the seedlings are then transplanted to a field prepared as for the kaurak sowing, being placed at intervals of

The Kohris among

about an inch from each other.

sugar-cane deserve special mention, as thrifty,

and

intelligent cultivators.

or cultivators of the

the most industrious,

Nearly the whole of the extensive

is in their hands. Wherever Kohri cultivators are settled, a large irrigation tank is invariably found, and their eye for the levels of the surrounding country and their sagacity in constructing tanks and water-courses are almost marvellous. Irrigation is resorted to and manure used only for the cultivation of rice, vegetables, sugar-cane, and betel. The Census of 1881 returned

sugar-cane

cultivation of the

a total of 5940 proprietors.

District

The

tenants-at-will

numbered 46,464,