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
