NORTH-IVESTERN PROVINCES AND OUDII. 383 interest charges, 4,245,002, which, deducted from the net profit shown above, gives an actual return to Government of £175,714. The area irrigated in 1877–78, owing to the general failure of the rains, was the largest up to that year known, amounting to 1,461,428 acres ; namely:-Rice, 221,670 ; cotton, 105,309; indigo, 210,349 ; fodder crops, 37,616; wheat, 415,659 ; other food-grains, 262,867; oil-seeds, 6936; fibres, 300; sugar-cane, 139,374; opium, 10,072 ; other drugs, 1154; garden produce, 31,858; miscellaneous, 18, 264 acres. The grand total area irrigated in 1883–84, which was again larger than in any previous year, was 2,297,674 acres:-Rice, 106,443 acres; cotton, 93,546; indigo, 295,388; pulses, 116,967; wheat, 824,607; barley, 292,028; other cereals, 184,697 ; sugar-cane, 155,147 ; oil-seeds, 3269; fibres, 5739; opium, 17,045; other drugs, 445; garden produce, 24,867; and the remainder (77,486) miscellaneous, of which 18,885 acres were under fodder crops. Of the crops raised on irrigated land, the chief kharif or autumn crops are rice, indigo, cotton, and sugarcane; the rabi or spring crops, wheat, barley, pulse, oil-seed, and fibres. In 1884, the irrigated area under kharif crops was 825,747 acres, and under rabí, 1,471,927. Ten years previously these figures were—under kharif crops, 389,707 acres, and under rabí, 752,745 acres. Tenures.—The system of land tenure is based upon the ancient Aryan communal type, with various modifications from the purest form of joint-village proprietorship down to the separate ownership of particular plots. The subject is so complex and important, that a complete account of the North-Western Provinces tenures will be given in the next three pages, somewhat condensed from the standing information in the Annual Administration Report for 1882–83. A summary from the most recent inquiries will then be given on pages 386–7. When the British Government acquired the country, the following classes, from whom the previous Government had realized its revenue, were found in existence :-(1) The representatives of old princely houses who paid the revenue on the whole, or as much as they could retain, of their inherited domains. (2) Contractors who farmed the Government revenue for more or less considerable groups of villages. (3) The village zamindárs, whose tenure was of one of the following four kinds :(a) zamíndári, where the produce of the whole village is distributed; (b) pattidári, where the land in the whole village is divided; (c) imperfect pattidári, where the land is divided in one part, and the produce distributed in another part of the same village, but the shares in the land and the shares in the produce bear the same, or nearly the same, proportion to the shares in the original interest ; (d) bháyachára, where the land is divided in part and the produce distributed in another part of the same village, but the shares in the land do not bear the same proportion as the shares in the
