BAyxu.
94
In 1872, the measurements of a regular settlement gave the following results
—Acres
cultivated,
579,663
or recently abandoned,
fallow
186,521 ; cultivable but uncultivated, 717,677; barren waste, 954,436. In 1878-79 (the latest year for which figures are available), the cultivated area was returned at
582,348 acres; cultivable, 723,284
and uncultivable, 1,146,312 acres; total area assessed for Government revenue, 2,451,944 acres, or 3831 square miles, out of a In Bannu Proper (the country of the total area of 3868 square miles. Bannuchis), every cultivable acre is under the plough, and the call upon the soil is incessant. The free use of manure and inundations from the fertilizing Kurram enable the same fields to bear two harvests, acres;
year after year,
— wheat or barley
The same
summer
in the early
and sugar-cane, with a
cotton, Indian corn,
little
millets, pulses,
rice, in
the autumn.
crops, excepting rice, form the staples of cultivation in all
District. Wheat and barley are sown in October or November, and reaped in April or May cotton is sown in April or May; millets, pulses, and Indian corn are sown in July and August. The autumn harvest continues throughout November. Next in fertility
parts of the
to the
Bannu
valley are the lands found in the low-lying bed of the
But agri14 miles across. to year upon the
Indus, which in places measures about culture here
precarious,
is
caprice of the river
when
and depends from year in
Villages which have thousands
flood.
of acres under cultivation one year, will next year often have hundreds only, or
none
at
Such land
all.
is
termed kacha.
of wheat and barley are peculiarly fine
summer
Its
spring crops
but as the low-lying lands
and high lands are often
become submerged by
the
also eroded, only from
15 to 20 per cent, of the kacha area produces
floods,
any autumn crop, and that mostly bdjrd. Beyond the high eastern The bank of the Indus there is very little cultivation indeed. Acres cultivated area may be thus classified in respect of irrigation irrigated by cuts from the Kurram and Tochi or Gambi'la, 99,212; subject to ditto by cuts from the Indus, 11,889; ditto by wells, 1367 inundation from the Indus, 54,511; dependent on the local rainfall, 412,684. The irrigated area in 1878-79 (the latest year for which returned at 155,552 acres, of which statistics are available) was 34,552 were irrigated by Government, and 121,000 by private works. returned as The acreage under the principal crops in 1882-83
—
follows
— Rice, 999
{jodr), 9088,
barley,
acres
46,236
gram, 69,875
sugar-cane, 4329; oil-seeds, tables,
559
wheat, 269,932
and Panicum spicatum
acres.
The
approximately returned
other
pulses,
938; drugs and
agricultural stock in
as
millets.
{bdjrd), 134,261
under;
— Cows
9793
spices,
Sorghum vulgare
maize, 27,391 cotton,
473; and vege-
the District in 1879
and
horses, 2620; ponies, 4S1; donkeys, 18,478; sheep
8293
bullocks,
and
is
127,609;
goats, -71,744
