Ill 



solely on dry land." All these beneficial results have been 

 produced by the removal of the special tax on garden cultiva- 

 tion in a district which is known to be one of the driest in 

 the Presidency, and in which out of 62 years beginning with 

 1803 and ending with 1865 the season in 9 had been des- 

 cribed as bad, in 40 as unfavourable, and only in 11 as favour- 

 able and in 2 as " bumper." Mr. Nicholson estimates the 

 average value of wet land at Rs. 255 per acre, of dry land at 

 Es. 19 per acre, and of garden land at Rs. 46 per acre. The 

 poorest lands on the margin of cultivation have of course 

 little or no value, and, allowing for this, he puts the average 

 value of dry land at Rs. 12 per acre. The total capitalized 

 value of the lands under occupation he estimates at 6*3 crores 

 of rupees. In the densely populated districts, such as Tan- 

 jore, lands rapidly rose in value when the prices of food 

 grains ruled high between 1860 and 1870 ; since then the rise 

 in value has not been quite so great. In other districts, 

 however, which have been opened up by extension of com- 

 munications, the rise in land values during recent years has 

 been very great. The increase in the value of land of course 

 is to some extent due to the fact of its being a "safe" in- 

 vestment. In the Tanjore district, for instance, persons in- 

 vesting money in land do not expect to get a greater return 

 than 4 or 5 per cent. ; and in South Canara the return is stated 

 to be as low as 3^ per cent. Nevertheless the rise in the 

 price of land is a sure indication of the abundance of circulat- 

 ing capital and of the moderation of the land tax. 



48. The proportion which the land assessment bears to 

 Relation between ^^^ ^®^^ valuc of the lauds is cvcn a better 

 Government assess- gaugo of the prcssure of the land tax than 

 ment and rental. land priccs. Statistics showiug this pro- 



portion for all the districts of the Presidency are not easily 

 procurable. I have, however, obtained the required particu- 

 lars for one district, viz., Coimbatore, from leases registered 

 in 1889, and the results are given in the appendix Y .-E. (e 4). 

 The number of leases examined was 700, of which 270 related 

 to dry lands, 3,084 acres in extent, 301 to garden lands of 

 3,675 acres, and 129 to wet lands of 375 acres. In the case 

 of dry lands, the rent was 3"4 times the Government assess- 

 ment, for garden it was 5*1 times and for wet lands 5 times. 

 Of the extent of land leased out, only in a small proportion of 

 cases are written engagements exchanged, and of such written 

 engagements only a small proportion is registered. More- 

 over it is only the better classes of lands that are leased out. 

 Nevertheless, the figures above given show that the lands 

 have not be^n over-assessed. In the case of dry lands leased 



