BIL
815
Subahdar of Gujarat; Azim-ud-din Husen Khan Bahadur, Deputy Collector of Patna.
BILGRA'M Pargana*
— Tahsil, Bilgeam—
District,
Haedoi.
C.S.I.,
—An
late
interest-
ing pargana of 114 villages, in the south-west of the Hardoi district. The Ganges flows along its western side, separating it from Farukhabad; pargana Bandi bounds it on the north and north-west Bangar on the north-west Mallanwdn on the south and south-east. With a length and breadth of 14 and 15 miles it covers an area of 117 square miles, of which 71 are cultivated, the percentages of cultivation, culturable waste, and barren being 58-37, 19-74, and 19-98. More than a third of the soil (35-24) is light and sandy, and less than a third (2869) is irrigated from 2,065 wells and 785 tanks and ponds.
The pargana divides naturally into two distinct tracts, kachh and bSngar. The kachh (or low land) comprises about a third, and lies to the west of the old bank of the Ganges that runs roughly north and south doAvn the west centre of the pargana. The gradual westing of the Ganges has left •a low moist tract between its ancient and present eastern banks, well watered by the Garguia nala, by the Ganges itself, and on the west by the Garra. In most of the villages in this part water is within a very few feet of the surface, so that percolation supplies the place of irrigation and keeps the surface always green and fresh. Everywhere in the kachh country there is much risk of loss of the autumn harvests from floods, but when the rivers subside in time to admit of timely sowing for the spring crops, these benefit from the thorough saturation of the soil, and by its enrichment with an alluvial deposit brought do-vm by the Ganges.
The kachh is separated from the bangar by an uneven sandy ridge, the old bank of the Ganges, sometimes (as quoted from the remark of the assessing officer, Mr. 0. W. McMinn; see Kachhandan) rising into hills, sometimes mere bhur slopes. The villages on this are sometimes all sandy, but more generally will have a corner of very good dumat beside some old The common features of this group of villages are a large river channel. proportion of bhur; limited and costly irrigation from deep wells lined with reeds; absence of kdchhis and valuable crops. Beyond the above
elevation the ground again sinks into the bdngar,
ihils make their appearance, there is much matiar, rice is largely raised, water is met with at a distance of from 10 to 20 feet, much of the land is irrigated, and all can be at a slight expense.
town of Bilgram,by two unmeNeoraghat on the Ganges, a few miles above Kanauj, and the road from Bangarmau and Mallanwan to Bilgram, Sandi, Shahabad, and Shahjahanpur, a part of the old Shdh-r^h The staple products are barley, b^jra, wheat, arhar, or king's highway. Tobacco is largely grown about Bilgram. There are beds iuar, and gram. Behti, Durgaganj, Katkapur, of nodular limestone (kankar) at Balendha, Lalpur, and Shekhnapur. The climate is good, except when the floods are with a bad type of malarious fever. falling,' when the low lands are infested
The pargana is
talled roads,
intersected at its centre, the
—that from Hardoi leading
to
Assistant Commissioner,
By Mr. A. H.
Harington,
c.
s.,
