and Birds. Wild Animals against a tiger or panther who may have taken up his quarters in their plantations, for they have a superstition that a garden plot ceases to produce from the moment one of these animals is killed there. District Selections. Our stock of "ruminantia" is not to be slighted, considering the immense strides cultivation has made. We have the sámbar and the spotted deer, with three kinds of antelope—the common antelope, the chikára, and the nílgai. Wild boar in herds are to be heard of everywhere in the district; formerly they used to be seen everywhere. The snaring Párdhi commits great havoc among the antelopes and chikára. Provided with a trained bullock, which pretends to graze constantly without doing so, and a small blind (an earth-coloured rag stretched over four sticks), the Párdhi goes, scen round and round the animal or birds he intends to take, fixing his snares in a regular The prepared sinews of animals and birds are the materials used. The snares are running nooses fixed on pegs, which are all connected. I have witnessed four antelopes thrown at once, and ten peafowl out of a dozen captured in a single setting. maze. In game birds there are the bustards (Eupodotis, or Otis Edwardsii*) in great plenty. Peafowl are to be found in plenty along the hills and where there are gardens. Floricant inhabit the ramnas (grass lands). The curlew, both black and white, is a very common bird. There are two varieties of partridges in great plenty-the black species is to be found in the ripe wheat fields; and there are several sorts of quails. Ducks, of various kinds, and teal, are to be found in the Púrna, mostly to the westward, in large flocks. The alligator is to be found in all the deeper pools of the Púrna and Káta Púrna rivers. The rivers abound in fish. Mr. Nicholetts, Assistant Commissioner, says: "We have the 'hohoe,' a species of carp; the 'marral,' the bestcating fish in our rivers; he is shaped like the ballhead of England, and has the habits of the pike, is a smooth fish of a dark colour; the com, the pupta, the 'bám,' a first-rate eating fish; the chilwa, the sangara, or dog-fish. The fish fit for table are the hohoe, marral, and bám. The first is well-known in India, is of a delicate flavour, but bony. The flesh of the marral is like that of the cod-fish, white, and very firm; the bám is more of the lamprey kind. "The fishermen are very great adepts at netting. They drag with great precision; sometimes they meet with an active old stager, but by signals they indicate his course to each other, and will make a capture of a large fish that had passed four or five of them in a regular hunt." *This is the correct name. The bird is different from the English bustard.— (Note by Colonel McMaster.) † Sypheotides auritus, not to be confused with the Bengal florican.-(Colonel McMaster.) In respect to nets Mr. Nicholetts enumerates "1st. The large stationary net, to which the fish are driven down by a number of men getting in the water and advancing towards the net. "2nd. The drag net used by men, enclosing gradually any pool where fishes are known to stop. "3rd. A peculiar kind of large shrimping net, which is placed at the mouth of a rapid where there is little water; the mouth of the net is kept open by means of a small stick three feet long, which falls and lets. it shut when the fish move them. "4th. The cast net, similar to the English one. "5th. The shrimping net, a kind of a bag-like net fixed to three sticks forming a triangle. The fishermen are principally Bhois. "The marral is constantly shot during the heat of the day; they come to the surface and skim about for hours; a tree overhanging a pool is the best place to shoot from." During freshes the fish flock up every nalla, and are easily captured. There has been a long discussion in official records condemning dams, as preventing fish from making their way up inland to spawn. River-fish in their streams or from some larger river become in a manner stupified during high floods, and come gasping towards the banks, where they are knocked on the head. The new water, or something it has absorbed, is conjectured to affect them in this way. Elichpu'r. Tigers and spotted deer near Sirúr; nílgai, antelope, gazelle, hyenas, wolves, jackals, foxes, monkeys, pigs, bustard, and peafowl are found in small quantities. Too much land is under cultivation to allow of much game. Snakes, particularly cobras, are abundant. Bulda'na. In the hills bears, tigers, panthers, hyenas, sámbar, nílgai, and hog are to be found, the last in great numbers; in the valley, hog, antelope, and about the banks of the Púrna, spotted deer and nílgai. Of game birds there are in the plains the common and the black partridge, quail, duck, and teal. In the hills and on the banks of the Púrna peafowl are obtainable. Wu'n. Tigers and panthers are so numerous that they are destructive to human life, and it is dangerous to travel on foot at night through threefourths of the district; the tigers have occasionally stopped the post. Within the last three years a panther in the Máhúr pargana, near the Painganga, has killed sixty-three human beings, and the most strenuous exertions to destroy him have failed. At the beginning of the year 1868 no less than five persons were killed by this panther in a fort Wild Animals and Birds. District Selections. Wild Animals and Birds. District Selections. night. Bison have been seen and shot in the Wái pargana of the Wún district. Sámbar, bhitál, and bears are found in the hills and ravines. Bears frequently attack and kill cutters of wood and herders of cattle. Nilgai are so numerous in the vicinity of hill ranges that they are very destructive to crops. Jungle hog are still more so. Antelopes are scarce; they are seen only in the valley of the Wardha and on table-lands, where wheat and gram are Sown. The ravine deer (chikára) and jungle sheep are met with, but the latter are not numerous. Hyenas, wolves, jackals, porcupines, foxes, and other smaller vermin are plentiful. Small game, such as partridges of both kinds, hares, &c., are mostly found all over the district; and wherever there are tanks ducks and snipe are abundant in season. Agriculture. General Remarks. CHAPTER VII. CULTIVATED PRODUCE, MODE OF HUSBANDRY, &c. AGRICULTURE. I.-General Remarks. The Berár cultivator follows a primitive system of rotation of crops. Ho manures very little, but as much as he can; he is obliged to use so much of his dung for fuel that he has little to spare for his fields. Good culturable land is never inclosed for hay and pasture, though plenty of grass is cut and stacked from wide uncultivated tracts; and the working bullocks are well fed, partly on this hay, more generally on the jawári stalks, a little on cotton seed. Large droves of cattle, sheep, and goats graze on bare commons and barren wolds. From wells the cultivators irrigate patches of wheat, sugarcane, opium, and what we should call market-garden produce. Here and there they get water from small reservoirs and surface streams, especially under the hills, and to the southward. But in the Berár valley, which contains the rich land, water is scarce, even for the drinking of man and beast; there is a dearth of grass and wood; hired labour is insufficient and dear. Capital in agricultural hands is scanty. The cultivators are slowly (though surely) emerging out of chronic debt. Agriculture is supported by the goodwill with which all the small money-lenders invest in it, because there are no other handy investments which pay so well as lending on bond to the farmers. Cultivation is obliged to support the peasant and his family to pay the State revenue, to return the capital invested, with not less than 18 per cent. interest to the Márwári,* and to furnish the court fees on litigation whenever the rustic sees a chance of evading his bond. But the petty cultivator keeps his hold of the land; no one * Village usurer and pawnbroker. 65 can make so much out of it as he can; and he is much aided by the customs of metairie tenancy and joint-stock co-operative cultivation, which enable him to get cattle, labour, and even a little cash, on favourable terms. On the whole the Berár cultivator is lazy and easy-going, starts late to his field and returns early. Neither hope of great profits nor fear of ruin will drive him to do the full day's work, which is extracted at such low wages from the English farm-labourer. II.-Division of Produce.* The registered proprietor under Government sublets in various ways, the principal is by batái. Of this mode there are several modifications: : 1st-Where he sublets for half the produce, he paying the Government rent, and the sub-holder incurring all expenses. 2nd-The same arrangement, but in addition the sub-renter contracts to pay a portion of the rent to the Government tenant— this never exceeds one-third. 3rd-Where the sub-renter pays his principal one-fourth the produce and half the Government rent. 4th-If the land is cultivated as a market garden the expense is greater, and so also is the produce; therefore the sub-renter will never agree to pay more than one-third the produce, or the Government tenant sublets at a higher profit; in that case he gets the sum of money agreed upon. Or he takes one or more partners; they all pay shares of the rent and cultivate. Each pair of bullocks and one man are reckoned as one share; the man alone is a proportion of a share, and each bullock is also a proportion. The produce is divided into shares, and distributed according to each partner's right, as estimated by the labour provided by him. A peculiar source of income consists in the possession of bullocks. A trader or man of property has a certain number of bullocks; he makes these over by pair or singly to field-owners, who gladly take and the feed them, paying the owners a stipulated quantity of grain after each harvest. Deaths from natural causes are the risk of the owner; hirer has to show that he gave the animal fair play, or forfeit its value. A peculiar mode of having large quantities of land ploughed up, sown, prepared by wakhar or daura, is by atari. The owner intimates what he wants done, the locality where, and the time, and proposes an atari." We will suppose ploughing to be the process required to be performed. In that case a large number of ploughs congregate, go into the field, and complete it; with the large number of hands the time required is very short. The atari is sometimes before they com * From the "Akola Gazetteer," by Mr. J. II. Burns. Agriculture. General Remarks. Division of Agriculture. Mode of Husbandry. mence, but the favourite time is after, and consists in a holiday feast. provided by the owner of the field. Not only the men who work, but all their household, attend. The edibles must be wheat-flour (not jawári, the ordinary diet), rice, gúr, ghí, and dál. This process is quick but expensive, and is usually confined to temple servants, who have large holdings of rent-free land without any cultivating establishments.* III.-Mode of Husbandry.† To clear new ground the husbandman cuts or burns down the trees on it, and digs up the roots. He then ploughs it up, whether deep or shallow, using two (never less) or more up to four pairs of bullocks for the maiden-ploughing, according to the kind of soil and the cost of his plough. Nearly everywhere, but more especially in the deep soil in this district, the agriculturist has to contend with a strong-rooted persistent kind of coarse grass called kund; the roots shoot out and intertwine in a mass through which the plough cannot always be forced; here it has to be dug out sometimes to the depth of three feet, and then is not wholly eradicated; it must crop up after a few years, but a steadily maintained warfare eventually conquers it. The ploughing need not be repeated in a well-prepared field for any number of years up to twenty, not in fact until the kund re-appears. Black soil of the first quality is ploughed every fifteen or twenty years, for the farmers say that more frequent ploughing exhausts it; but the lighter soils are turned up every third or fifth year; in such soils the ploughing has to be repeated frequently, say in three or four years for a well-prepared field, the ordinary grass weeds and scrubs being almost ineradicable in ground of that kind. The maiden-ploughing completed, the field is in large loose clods; breaking them up is seldom attempted; harrowing is useless, and other modes are expensive; so it is allowed to remain in that state until after one or two falls of rain; it subsides a little then, and a plough is passed through a second time. This second ploughing is called the dusárni. The field is now harrowed; the implement used is a mogra, a log one and a half cubits long and about twelve inches broad, thick, with two wooden spikes or teeth, drawn by one or two pairs of oxen, according to the soil; these teeth rend roots and tear through the earth, while the log levels it. The implement is completed with an upright handle and a thin pole fixed obliquely, met by a stick fixed in the contrary direction; the driver stands on the log to increase the weight. After this the field is put under the wakhar, an implement very similar to the mogra, but smaller, and an iron bar with two arms corre *Compare a similar well-known custom in Canada. † From the "Akola Gazetteer." |