449 



carefully preserved. Attention to this vital point has marked all periods 

 of good administration of government, and its neglect has ever been 

 the concomitant of social disaster and misery. In India the i^eign of 

 Akbar still looms np amid the imperfect memorials of history as an era 

 of great prosperity, in which the interests of agricnlture were brought 

 within regulations devised by profound wisdom, British rule has em- 

 braced the principles of native legislation, and has adapted itself to the 

 agricultural problem in India with remarkable sagacity. Tbe relations 

 of village communities, of land tenures, and of other social interests 

 have been settled into a regular system of common and statute law and 

 of recognized local customs, which have given stability to the productive 

 system of that vast empire. Special attention is given to agricultural 

 statistics, ujion the correctness of which the welfare of the people 

 directly depends. The variation of local institutions and customs ren- 

 ders it difficult to reduce such statistics to a uniform system, but the 

 facts are laboriously gathered, and the best practicable use made of 

 them. As an illustration of these local differences, it is stated that in 

 Bombay the land-revenue amounts to 3s. M. per head ; in the northwest 

 provinces it is 26-. 5d. ; in the Punjab, 2s.', in Madras, 2s. Qd.; in Bengal 

 and Assam it is only Is. l^d. 



To give a more graphic idea of Indian social life, Mr. Markham selects 

 a village in the Bombay presidency as a type. The village system is 

 here in better preservation, and records of statistical inquiry at three 

 different periods are more numerous and accessible. The Bombay agri- 

 culturist is a lean man, with i^rominent muscles, small hands and feet, 

 eyes full and black, cheek bones high, and teeth stained with betel. His 

 clothing is by no means abundant. He is frugal and provident, devoted 

 to his children, more intelligent than European laborers in general, but 

 cunning and false. He is one of a population of 600 to 1,000, cultivat- 

 ing an average tract of 4,000 acres, and lives in a village ol' 150 to 200 

 houses of sun-dried brick, with terraced roofs and open porticoes, and 

 a few small, dark, interior rooms. The furniture consists of a few cop- 

 per cooking utensils, about twenty earthen pots for the storage of rice 

 or grain, a kneading-trough, and a few other very elementary articles ot 

 furniture, the whole not worth over $10. A yoke of oxen and a plow 

 of cross-sticks, without plowshare, a rough wooden cart with solid 

 wheels, a harrow with wooden teeth, and a few other rude implements 

 constitute his stock in trade. 



The arable land is classed as nuirrigated, irrigated, and garden land. 

 Two crops are generally grown: for instance, spiked millet, sown in June 

 or July and harvested in October or November, is immediately followed 

 by wheat or other cereals, to be harvested in January or February. The 

 land is plowed only every other year, and that only to the depth of a 

 span, but it is frequently subjected to tbe drag-hoe, first lengthwise and 

 then across, in order to kill the weeds. The grain is trodden out by 

 bullocks, the ears having been separated from the stalk, and winnowed 

 by being poured from a vessel held several feet from the ground in a 

 strong breeze. The agricultural laborer requires but little food, and 

 that very inexpensive. A cake of millet, a few greens, pods, or fruits 

 cut in i^ieces, boiled or fried, and a little coarse porridge are sufficient 

 for his sustenance. His labors are diversified by pilgrimages to temples 

 and holidays. In October he paints his oxen with fantastic colors, dresses 

 them up as deities, feeds them with sugar, and then falls down before 

 them in abject worship. 



The statistics of agriculture are collected through a peculiar local 

 government. The harra haloota, which is a board of twelve village 



