80 Mr. Hodgson's Description of the Village of Pudu-vayal. 



Society, the average annual expense of ten ploughs and their drivers is 

 stated to be 100| pagodas, or £4. 3s. per plough.* 



The plough-share is of iron, about fourteen inches long, one inch broad, 

 and half an inch thick, fixed into a wooden share with clamps. Drill- 

 ploughs are in use for dry landj and one seen in this village had three 

 shares, and three bamboo tubes with a small wooden cup, into which the 

 pipes or tubes were fixed : the cup is filled by the hand of the driver of 

 the plough, or by a boy following the plough. The common plough is of 

 so slight a construction, that one man can easily carry two or three on his 

 shoulders to the fields. A harrow with wooden teeth is in use. 



Field labour, when paid in money, whicii is, however, seldom the case, 

 is paid for at the rate of eight shillings per montii ; or, at the higiiest, at 

 ten shilhngs per montli for an able-bodied man. Lads of fifteen or sixteen 

 years of age are, however, quite competent to manage a plough. 



When the season for cultivation arrives, the arable land of the village is 

 allotted to the several shareholders, in a manner peculiar to villages where 

 wet or rice cultivation predominates. This pecuhar mode of allotment 

 has, in all likelihood, arisen from the necessity of making a fair distri- 

 bution among all the cultivators of the water collected in the tank ; the 

 land nearest to the source of supply being, in seasons of drought or a 

 deficient supply of rain, of double the value of that situated at a distance, 

 and beyond the reach of a regular supply of water. The allotment pro- 

 ceeds as follows : 



The names of each lot and of each shareholder are written on pieces of 

 the leaf of the palm tree, such as is used for viUage records, and tlie names 

 of each division of land to be allotted are placed in a row. A child, 

 selected for the purpose, draws by lot a leaf with the name of a principal 

 shareholder, and places it under a number thus : 



1. 2. 3. 4. 



Tannappa. Nina. Narrappa. Malliyan. 



It is thus settled, by chance or lottery, that Tannappa and his under- 

 shareholders are entitled to cultivate the land of the principal share lotted 

 under No. 1 . Tannappa next proceeds to settle in the same way each 

 under-shareholder's portion included in his principal share ; and so on till 

 the sixty-four shareholders receive each his allotment. 



* This account includes the produce and value of about an acre of sugar-cane. 



