APPENDIX I 207 



B.— GUJAKAT. 

 CASE No. VII. 



(Althan village, taluka Chorasi, district Surat. Area — Acres 694. 



Assessment — Rs. 4384. ) 



Land-holders 99, of whom 54 are cultivators and 45 are 

 non-cultivators, which gives an average of 7 acres per hold- 

 ing, or ignoring non-cultivators, 13 acres per holding. 



The largest non-cultivator's holding amounts to 86 acres 

 in 23 separate plots. 



The largest cultivators' holdings are : — 



1. One of 41 acres, in 9 plots, the largest plot being 23 

 acres. 



2. One of 35 acres, in 8 plots, the largest plot being 17 

 acres. 



3. One of 26 acres, in 8 plots, the largest two of which are 

 6 and 5 acres respectively. 



There are a good many small holdings of from 2 to 7 

 acres, but most of the holders of these manage to hire other 

 land. In a few cases fragmentation has reduced the size 

 of plots to £ acre, but such cases are rare. 



The village has heavy black soil and is a dry-crop village 

 growing cotton and jowari. A good cultivator aims at 

 cultivating from 15 to 20 acres with one pair of bullocks, 

 and a fair proportion of the cultivators secure this amount 

 of. land ; so it will be recognised that from the economic 

 point of view subdivision of land has not yet gone to any 

 disastrous lengths. As regards fragmentation it will be 

 noticed that it is considerable, and is certainly prejudicial, 

 but the land is fairly level, dry-crop land, where there is no 

 question of irrigation or garden cultivation, and compara- 

 tively little opening for permanent improvement. In such 

 a case, provided that the individual plots amount to 3 or 4 

 ae^es, and are not too small to admit of convenient tillage 

 operations, the loss caused by fragmentation is relatively 

 small. In the main this is the case here. 



