86 Indigo in the North- Western Provinces. 



Indigo cultivation may be divided into two great 

 heads : niz and assamiwar. The former cultivation 

 may be likened, in some respect, to a Home farm 

 managed by the proprietor of an estate in England. 

 It is prosecuted on lands of which the party or "con- 

 cern " has acquired the tenant-right, or the right of 

 actual occupancy, by an establishment of ploughs, 

 oxen and servants maintained at the planter's own 

 expense. Occasionally ploughs and oxen are hired 

 for the purpose when the establishment kept up at 

 the factory may not be sufficient. 



The ryoti cultivation, on the other hand, as the 

 very name implies, is carried on by the tenants on 

 their own lands under contract or advances made by 

 the planters as will be explained hereafter. But 

 ryoti itself is divided into cultivation of two kinds : 

 one carried on in villages or estates in which the 

 planter has temporarily acquired the rights of the 

 talukdar or zemindar the other, in villages be- 

 longing to outside parties. These two systems are 

 familiarly known as ilaka or be-ilaka ryoti culti- 

 vation ; the latter also frequently called khuki indigo. 

 These same divisions have been in existence for over 

 twenty years, and they hold good at the present day, 

 except, perhaps, that the be-ilaka or .khaski indigo 

 has largely increased as compared with Ilaka y 

 assamiwar, and ziratk. Kkaski has also largely 



