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76. A Kdchhi generally holds a smaller area than other cultivators ; 



it is in the best land mostly, and he devotes his whole 

 Kachhi. 



attention to it. Let us suppose a Kachhi with wife and 



three boys 8, 10, and 12 years of age respectively, and allow him eight bighas of 

 land, of which three bighas are in the gauhan or homestead, four bighas in the 

 midlands, and one bigha in the outlands ; he has one pair of plough bullocks, 

 and either has a well of his own or uses a masonry well of the xamindar. His 

 agricultural operations will be much as follows : When the rain falls (about 

 middle of Asarh, say, or end of June) he will plough for his maize (one bigha), 

 taking two days, and will then with a hired labourer and his eldest boy sow the 

 field up to noon. As every grain has to be separately and carefully sown, 

 labour is increased ; after noon they will clear the field of grass, weeds, &c., and 

 level it. He then throws a cartload of manure on the maize field and ploughs 

 for his jwar (one bigha), which takes a day ; he then sows it and levels the field. 

 He now sets to work to plough for his poppy and rabi crops, till in the begin- 

 ning of Sawan (or end of July) he, his two sons, and seven hired hands, costing 

 10 annas, weed the maize, and next day the jwdr at the same cost, and he then 

 again ploughs his rabi fields. After this he and his son will plant out four biswas 

 egg-plant and two bis was pepper, and again weed his maize as above. About 

 this time he runs his plough through the jwdr (" gurai" from " gorna"), which 

 keeps the soil pulverised, lets the rain soak in, and thins out the crop, and goes 

 on with his rabi ploughings. Bhddon has now arrived, and the maize has to 

 be watched by a hired man who costs for 25 days Rs. 2-5~6. In the day the 

 eldest boy, and at night the Kachhi himself help in the watching. During the 

 day the father is employed in ploughing up to noon, and then looking after 

 the cattle, &c. Now he and his two sons and one hired man will cut the maize, 

 and next day with two hired men costing three annas cut the cobs from the stalks 

 and pile them in the threshingfloor, where they will lie for a week, watched at 

 night by the cultivator himself. In the day the field will be ploughed for a 

 second crop, bijhra. When Kwdr comes he will with his son sow carrots and 

 radishes, and still plough his rabi fields, or, as leisure offers, thresh out his maize 

 (sometimes with cattle, sometimes by merely beating the cobs with a thick 

 club). Kdtik having arrived, with one labourer he and his son will now sow the 

 rabi (two bighas wheat and one bigha bijhra) in three days, paying the labourer 

 two annas a day, as there is great demand for labour at this time, and then make 

 the irrigation beds. There is now a press of work, watching the jwdr, water- 

 ing the vegetables, preparing the field for poppy cultivation ; so his second 

 son will watch the jwdr morning and evening, and the father with the eldest 

 son and his wife will water the vegetables : when the boy comes back from the 

 jwdr fields the wife will go home and cook the food. It will take sis days to 



