9 ( 105 ) 



for a pair of oxen for nearly three months, and an acre of wheat or Ujhra giving 

 twenty-eight maunds of bMsa will support a yoke of oxen for nearly two months. 

 For a milch cow or buffalo, besides cut grass, &c., cotton-seeds (binauld) and 

 khalli are necessary in the cold weather. 



119. The favourite herbs for cattle, and which are mixed in "hariyfc," 



aro : 



Golhi (hieracium ?) 



Jjathui (chenopodium album, white goose-foot ?) also a favourite pot- 

 herb eaten as greens. 



Bondi. 



1 20. The best grasses are jankari and musel or gandhel, which give two 

 cuttings in the year and are carefully guarded in groves, &c. 



121. A milch buffalo is a great help to a cultivator, often paying the rent 

 like the Irishman's pig. A good cow will give four seers milk a day, from which 

 two seers glii will be made in the week, selling for Re. 1 at the nearest market. 

 It is a common custom to agree with a mahajan to supply so much say a 

 maund of ghi in the year, taking an advance on it. The mahajan credits the 

 cultivator with the ghi received, taking at the rate of one and a quarter seer for 

 one seer. The buttermilk and fuel cakes must be reckoned in estimating the 

 profit from a buffab. 



122. A piece of tortoise-shell or the wood from the socket of the flour- 

 mill is hung round the neck of a milch cow to avert the evil eye: great, too, is 

 the fear of an enemy bewitching the cow, and charms and incantations known 

 only to Ahirs and Gareriyas are resorted to ; whilst at an eclipse the cow in calf is 

 rubbed on the horns and belly with red ochre to secure an unblemished offspring. 



123. Non-agriculturists pay an Ahir (gwdld) or Gareriya 8 annas a year 

 for a buffalo, 4 annas for a cow, and 2 annas for a goat to take them out daily 

 to the " har" to graze. Zamindars generally get this done for nothing. In ad- 

 dition to this, the gwalas of a village collect after the Diwali festival (when Gober- 

 dhan, vulgo Gordhan, is worshipped in the form of a little heap of cowdung deco- 

 rated with pieces of cotton), and go round to the houses of those whose cattle 

 they graze, and to the music of two sticks struck together and a drum (beaten 

 by a Kori) sing rude melodies and get presents of cloth, grain, or pice. This 

 is called dang (a club) Diwali. A fee of two pice is also claimed, Sdican badi 

 Doj, for every cow brought to graze, called " merwai," supposed to repay the 

 extra trouble necessary in the rains to keep the cattle off the field boundaries 

 (merh). Every day the gwdld milks a buffalo he gets a chapdtti, and every 

 other day for a cow. 



14 



