66 HOLDINGS 



its action is undoubtedly harmful and that remedial 

 measures are clearly indicated. 



" Fragmentation," on the other hand, is an un- 

 mitigated evil for which no advantages can be claimed. 

 It consists of the splitting up of a single holding into 

 a number of separate plots situated at a distance from 

 each other. It arises, not directly from the Hindu 

 law of inheritance, but from customs connected with 

 that law, and has its origin in a desire to provide 

 an automatic method of securing a mathematically 

 accurate partition of a holding amongst the heirs. 

 Thus, supposing that a man dies holding 9 

 acres of land divided into three plots of 3 acres 

 each, and leaves three sons, it might be hoped that 

 each son would take a solid plot of 3 acres, 

 settling with the others in money the balance arising 

 from any difference in the quality of the different 

 plots. This, however, seldom happens, but, on the 

 contrary, each plot will be split up into three sub- 

 plots of 1 acre each, and a sub-plot in each place 

 assigned to each heir, so that each of the three hold- 

 ings made out of the original 9 acre holding will 

 consist of three separate plots of 1 acre each. Nor 

 does the inconvenience end there ; for the partition 

 is effected in such a way as to secure an equal parti- 

 tion of good and bad land in each plot, and often 

 leads to a division into long narrow strips. In the 

 case of rice fields consisting of a terraced slope this 

 fragmentation is very marked, for each heir will aim 

 at getting a share of each terrace, and sometimes 



