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BILASPUR.

451

9098 proprietors. The tenants of all grades numbered 61,817 had either absolute or occupancy rights, 148,852 were tenants-at-will, and 105,203 assistants in home cultivation.

showed a

total of

315,872, of

The

whom

The

numbered 78,257.

agricultural labourers

average area

culti-

by each head of the regular agricultural population (405,067, or 39’82 per cent, of the District population) was 7 acres the amount of Government land revenue and local cesses levied on the landholders was ^28,643; the amount of rental, including cesses, paid by the cultivators was ;,^6 1,049. vated in

The

1881

rent of land suited for rice averages iid.



for wheat, is. 2d.;

Average produce per acre rice, 424 lbs.; wheat, 324 lbs.; cotton, 54 lbs.; and oil-seeds, 120 lbs. The price of rice at the end of 1881-82 was 2s. per cwt. ; wheat, 2s. 4d. per cwt. ; and raw sugar {gur), iis. per cwt. for cotton

or

9d.

oil-seeds,

—

Wages average agricultural

for



sugar-cane,

3s.

6d.

for skilled labour is. per diem, for unskilled 3d.

stock

thus

is

returned

—cows,

bullocks,

and

The

buffaloes,

655,640; horses, 354; ponies, 4691; donkeys, 104; sheep and goats, 21,235; P'gS) 4861; carts, 13,647; and ploughs, 287,202. The extensive forests of the District are situated in the zaminddris, and belong to private proprietors



Government forest consist Lormi and Lamni Hills on

the only large tracts of

of the wastes which

spread over the

the north-west, and the confiscated area at Sonakhan. skirting the northern hills, other patches of jungle

Sal

is

On

the plain

have been reserved.

the only valuable timber, and the inaccessibility of the forests

renders the revenue from this source of small value. ducts, lac

and tasar

silk

Of

jungle pro-

In some villages

are the most important.

the practice prevails of changing fields periodically, to prevent any

monopoly of the best husbandmen show but

slight

even a hereditary tenant

NaUiral

Calamities.

Everywhere throughout the

sites.

will,

— An

District the

attachment to their individual holdings for a small sum, relinquish his land.

agricultural population,

dependent

for its

subsistence on a single crop, and that one which requires a heavy in each of the four rainy months, would appear peculiarly Happily, however, owing to its girdle of hills, exposed to famine. Bilaspur enjoys a fairly regular monsoon, and an abundant fall in one part generally compensates for drought in another. Moreover, the numerous tanks, though of small size, add considerably to the water

downpour

supply of the District.

Commerce and Trade.

— The

important local industry.

weaving trade constitutes the only it employed about 6000 looms,

In 1870,

turning out at least 600,000 cloths, of the value of ;^6o,ooo. the regular weavers, the fields,

Banka

caste

and nearly half the cloth

ore abounds in the hilly regions

work

at the

in the District

is

loom

Besides

as well as in the

made by them.

Iron-

but owing to the absence of agdrias