AGRICULTURE
3
liable to suffer from deficient rainfall. A canal from the Ken to serve
Banda District has recently been completed; and schemes to increase the
water available in the Betwa Canal, which is at present insufficient or
the demand, and to open other sources are under consideration. Other
calamities are the prevalence of rust after a wet or cloudy winter, and
the growth of a weed or grass called kans, which spreads rapidly and
can be eradicated only with difficulty. Famine has thus been severely
felt again and again; and the failure of the rains in 1896, which followed
successive bad years, was especially disastrous.
The liability to good and bad cycles of agricultural conditions is
coupled with peculiarities in the nature and disposition of the people.
Though perhaps not more extravagant than the inhabitants of the rest
of the United Provinces, they are distinctly less provident; and the
careful cultivation and saving habits of the Jats, Kurmis, Kachhis,
Muraos, and Koiris of other Districts are not found in Bundelkhand.
This may be traced partly to the liability to vicissitudes already referred
to, and partly to the effects of the revenue system of the Marathas, who
possessed the tract before the British. The most common method was
to assess a village annually at fixed rates on soil or crops, and to make
deductions for bad seasons, after a valuation of the crops of each
holding. This was a system of rack-renting, as the rates were the
highest which could be paid in a good season, and it is obviously not
a system under which either the standard of comfort or the prosperity
of a community would be likely to increase. Except in part of the
Lalitpur tahsil of Jhansi, the land was chiefly held by individual culti-
vators, and talukddrs or large holders of land were few. British rule
conferred proprietary rights on the village headmen who were found
managing land and collecting rents, and on a few relations of these who
shared in the headman's special holding or reduced rent. Instead of
the demand being regulated by the season, a rigid system of collecting
a fixed amount was introduced ; land became a transferable security,
and the owners, unaccustomed to their new conditions, got freely into
debt, and lost their holdings. It was estimated that in Banda, most of
which became British territory early in the nineteenth century, an aggre-
gate equal to twice or thrice the area of the District changed hands
during the next forty years. Most of Jhansi District was acquired
later, when more experience had been gained in revenue administration,
and sale of land was not allowed till 1862 ; but even here sufficient
allowances were not made. Some landowners had been in debt since
the Maratha rule. After the Mutiny, revenue was collected from many
from whom it had already been extorted by the Orchha or Jhansi rebels.
In 1867 the crops failed, and in 18,68-9 there was famine and great loss
of cattle. In 1872 many cattle were lost from murrain. Although the
settlement had appeared light, it became necessary to re-examine the
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