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432

Bijnaur, do not materially differ from those prevalent throughout the whole upper basin of the Ganges and its tributaries. Here and there, especially in the south-western corner of the District, undulating sandtlie fertile soil, composed of materials which originally from time to time before the prevailing westerly winds, but which have now become fixed in position and bound together by coarse vegetation. Most of them produce barley and other inferior crops in

hills

overlie

shifted

The open plain countr)" is divided into bd?igar and khddar or lowland. The latter lies along the riverand its soil is always composed of clay, but intermi.xed with

years of favourable rain. or upland, sides



sufficient

sand

per cent,

is

Of the

for agricultural purposes.

khddar and 64 per

total cultivated area, 36 Besides the alluvial border

cent, bdngar.

Ramganga are all fringed The total area under cultivation Of this total (including twice-

of the Ganges, the rivers Malin, Kho, and with a

fertile strip

of valuable lowland.

amounted in 1880 to 652,689 acres. cropped land), the kharif ox autumn harvest, sown in June or July, and reaped in October or November, occupied some 418,550 acres. The area in acres under the principal kharif crops was returned as follows

— Rice, 2T,995



201,001; bdjrd, 66,702; urd, 24,493;

14,209; cotton,

sugar-cane, 47,995 together with smaller quantities of oil-seeds, and coarse grains. The rabi or spring harvest (including

dye-stuffs,

twice-cropped land), sown in October or November, and reaped in

March and April, covered in 1880, 292,692 acres. Its chief crops included wheat, roi,i2i acres; barley, 42,155 acres; gram, 25,140 acres; wheat and barley, mixed, 73,960 acres; together with vegetables, opium, tobacco, and safflower, and minor quantities of pulses, oil-seeds, In 1881-82, the total cultivated area was food-stuffs. returned at 655,085 acres, or, including two-crop {do fasli) land, 693,437

and common acres.

Wheat, products.

rice,

cotton,

The mode

and

sugar-cane

of cultivation

is

form

simple,

the most important and the implements in

The tenures belong to whole North-Western Provinces ; but

use hardly differ from those of the Vedic age. the three classes

common

to the

the zaminddri holdings form 79 per cent, of all the estates, whilst among these more than half belong to single owners, chiefly the great tdlukddrs

of Sherkot, Tajpur, Haldaur, and Sahanpur. acres

cultivated

in

1881

The average number

by each head of the regular

of

agricultural

population (409,453, or 56'75 per cent, of the District population) was 2 '64 acres; the amount of Government land revenue, including local cesses

levied

on the landholders, was ;^i40,737 the amount of paid by the cultivators was ;,^262,689, or an

rental, including cesses,

Nearly the whole population dependent on agriculture, as nearly all the weavers, barbers, blacksmiths, and carpenters cultivate land, and live

average of are,

8s.

o|d. per cultivated acre.

however, more or

less