INDIGOFERA TINCTORIA. 



49 



on its own terms in the future. Very frequently therefore in the first agreement made 

 with a cultivator the plant is priced at a favorable rate, but a stipulation is entered bind- 

 ing him down to deliver not less than a certain amount of it lohich is often hiowingly fixed 

 at an impossible figure on penalty of forfeiting 2 J to 3 times what balance there may be 

 against him. With the chance of obtaining cash down, the cultivator pays but little heed 

 to stipulations of a merely contingent nature, and hence a single bad season may involve 



him in obligations to the factory, and — in the experience of the Bareilly District 



" henceforward he has no resource if he wishes to get free of debt but emigration or 

 rather flight to the Terai — that safe haven of refuge from civil court decrees." 



The power thus acquired over a cultivator may be used either to compel him to grow 

 plant at the factory's will, or to sell his plant at a price much lower than it would other- 

 wise command. That these are solid advantages may be judged from the fact that the 

 value of a factory is often estimated by the amount of outstanding debts it has, or in 

 other words, by the degree to which surrounding cultivators are under obligations to it. 



With an increase in the number of factories in a district the market for plant be- 

 comes of course much wider, and it then becomes possible for a cultivator to grow indigo 

 unfettered by agreements and to rely for obtaining a good price on the competition of one 

 factory against another. This is the system known as the khishkharid or " good bargain," 

 so named of course from the cultivator's point of view. In a district where factories are 

 numerous, the difference between the price paid for hadni and /ihushlcharid indigo is very 

 great; when the former is contracted for at Es. 18 the latter will often sell for as much as 

 Es. 26 per 100 maunds. The kJnishJcharid system is of course by far the most popular 

 amongst the cultivating community, and the gradual increase in the prosperity of a vil- 

 lage, or its gradual recovery from the effects of a series of disastrous seasons, may often 

 be traced in the increase of the area under Mushkharid at the expense of that under 

 badni plant. 



Injuries. The most dreaded source of damage to the indigo plant is continued wet weather, 



which renders the plants tall and woody without much foliage, and by a kind of etiola- 

 tion prevents the proper development of the dye property in the leaves. So much of 

 the indigo grown in the Doab is protected by canal irrigation, that a year of unduly 

 heavy rainfall is considered even more disastrous than one of partial drought, since a 

 proper allowance of sunlight is as necessary to the production of the dye as water is to 

 the growth of the plant. 



Cost of cultivation. The cost of cultivating an acre of jamoioa indigo to be cut in August and followed 



by a rabi crop is shown below : — 







ES. A. 



p. 



Plougliing (twice), 





... 1 8 







Clod crushing, ' ... 





... 4 







Seed (8 seers), ... 





... 1 8 







Sowing, 





... 3 







"Weeding (twice), 





... 3 







Reaping, 





... 1 9 







Watering (three times), 





... 4 15 









Total, 



... 12 15 







Rent, 





... 2 8 









Grand Total, 



... 15 7 







H 



