BILASPUR.
450
and vegetables cooked with ghi
in the evening,
and
morning,
in the
before beginning work, a rice gruel called bdsi, which consists simply of filled up with water and served have of course a greater variety and the abundance of milk and giir enables a clever matron to
the remains of the last evening’s repast cold.
The
of diet
castes
who
eat fish
On
provide occasional sweets. live well
and
flesh
the whole, the great
body of the people
but their simplicity and superstition render them an easy
An instance may be mentioned. About named Mangal, gave out that a deity had
prey to designing persons.
twenty years ago a Pankd, entered into him
and, sitting with a light before him, he received the
adoration and offerings of crowds of worshippers.
It happened to be and Mangal proclaimed that good men’s crops would spring up without sowing. Thousands believed his teaching, till, finding the revenue falling off, the Native Government arrested Mangal, and committed him to Rdipur jail. The language spoken in the Dis-
the cultivating season,
trict
PUR
corrupt Hindi', wdth an admixture of aboriginal words.
is
largest
towns
(5615),
in the District are
The
— Bilaspur (population, 7775), Ratan-
and Mungeli (4757); 84 other towns have a population Townships of from 200 to 1000 inhabitants, 1720;
exceeding 1000.
villages of fewer than
200 inhabitants, 1917.
The only
municipality
is
Bilaspur.
Agriculture
.
— Of
the total area of 7798 square miles, 2121
were
returned in 1881 as under cultivation, 4164 square miles as cultivable, and 1063 square miles as uncultivable waste. About one-fifth of the area
under cultivation is irrigated, entirely by private enterprise. Rice forms the staple crop of the District, occupying in 1881, 751,529 acres, the other principal crops being
291,680
acres; oil-seeds,
33,070 acres;
cotton,
—
wheat, 537,470 acres; other food-grains, 112,500 acres; sugar-cane, 13,843 acres;
fibres,
These
vegetables, 4031 acres.
2763 acres; tobacco, 4345 acres; and figures include land bearing two crops
Either the black earth, consisting of the debris of trap, or
in the year.
probably decomposed
laterite, is most suitable for and aspect of the rice fields, which are excessively small, are considered of more importance than the nature of the soil. It Sugar-cane and garden produce grow well on the sandy patches. is only for these crops that irrigation is resorted to and manure used.
the red, which
is
rice; but the situation
Where
rice is
grown, rotation of crops
allowed to remain fallow. cent, extra,
till
The
in four or five years
other crops rotation
is
is left
fallow.
The
falls to
Cotton
inasnr,
the land
it
not practised, nor
new land averages the
common
Thus, after wheat
in use.
and then perhaps kodo. some other oil-seed ; and where
is
yield of
this is
is
will
is
the land
25 to 30 per level.
With
come gram
often succeeded by
not done, after four or
til
or
or
five years
cultivation of cotton continues to increase-,
having nearly doubled within the
last
few years.
'I'he
Census of 1881
