AGRICULTURE AND IRRIGATION.
inam. The scheme is estimated to oost Rs. 10,82,000 and to give a return of 8 per cent, on the total capital outlay.
This chapter may conclude with a few words summarizing the effect which the conditions sketched in it and elsewhere in this volume have upon the economic condition of the class which so greatly preponderates in Vizagapatam, namely, the smaller agriculturists. The question is rendered more than usually difficult owing to the absence of agricultural statistics for more than nine-tenths of the area of the district.
It will be seen in Chapter VI below that arts, industries and manufactures are scarce, and consequently afford the people few alternative occupations when the seasons are unfavourable; but Chapter VIII shows that the rainfall is usually good except along the sea-board; that when it is not, emigration to Rangoon and Gódávari is the customary safety-valve; and that the ample communications with Burma, the deltas of the Gódávari and Kistna, and the grain-growing tracts in Jeypore suffice to prevent prices rising to excessive heights.
Were it otherwise the people would be poorer than they are,for zamindari tenure, without admitted occupancy right in the land, does not make for careful cultivation or the improvement of the soil. Doubtless statistics would show that the number of small holders of land is less in zamindari than in ryotwari land,but part of the reason for this lies in the fact that the zamindars do not encourage the pauper cultivator, preferring to let their land to men of substance. In none of the estates have the ryots an acknowledged fixity of tenure except in Vizianagram, where a re-settlement was lately carried out when the property was under Government management and the occupancy right of those ryots who agreed to the new rates was admitted. The assessments are not constantly or avariciously raised, but at irregular intervals they are enhanced by a few pies in the rupee to meet the extensien of cultivation and the general rise in prices which has occurred, and when a man dies his patta is re-granted to his heirs (these documents are seldom renewed annually, as in the south)at a somewhat enhanced rate. But the chances of the occurrence of one or other of these events, or of a rival ryot applying (in accordance with a local custom which is well established) for an exchange of holdings with his neighbour on the ground that the latter's land is under-assessed, are sufficient to check the sinking of capital in improvements. Some of the zamindari pattas moreover contain ungenerous terms (such as a stipulation that no trees shall be felled and none planted without permission) and
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