ECONOMIC HISTORY OF SAMBALPUR DISTRICT, 1849-1947 27 per cent of the revenue of the village, besides the bethi begar2 were equally powerful. That is, the Gountias and Zamindars emerged as a powerful class of landlords in the aftermath of British rule. After the expiry of the first major Settlement conducted during 1872-76, the second Settlement was undertaken by W. Nethersole (1885-89). He notes that cotton was grown in sufficient quantity to supply the scanty clothes people used. The major crops were rice, pulses, til, cotton and sugarcane. Though the more productive transplantation method covered only 3 to 4 per cent of the total area cultivated, there were about 3.3 and 4.3 tanks per village (for occasional irrigation) in Bargarh and Sambalpur tehsils (respectively), which led to increase in production (Nethersole, 1885-89: 5-7). Since food supply was plentiful and easily procured, even the condition of the attached labourers and the casual labourers was fairly satisfactory.3 Although the district received only scanty rainfall in 1834,1845,1865-66,1877-78 and 1886, which affected the price of rice, especially in the Padampur tract (O'Malley, 1909: 20-22), Nethersole's observation about the 'general prosperity' of the district might be upheld for at least two reasons: (a) the rate of growth of the population during 1872-1891, inflated by the incompleteness of the then census (O'Malley, 1909: 53), was not that high, limiting the pressure on land, and (b) the Mahanadi which traverses 122 kms. in the district was the only major route of transportation and export (the Sonpur-Ganjam road was also of some significance), resulting in a restriction on the export of rice from the district which helped hold the price level. Moreover, since the labourers were being paid mainly in kind (paddy and rice), even the small fluctuations in price did not affect them adversely. But they were certainly affected during natural calamities like droughts, floods and invasion by pests.The 'general prosperity' of the district, however, had a major setback after 1890 when the Bengal-Nagpur. railway line, passing through Jharsuguda, was completed. The completion in 1894 of the Jharsuguda-Sambalpur Branch Railway affected the extent of trade and doubled the price of rice, lead to an increase in the value of land and a 30 per cent enhancemenfof revenue in the next Settlement.4 The immediate result of the expansion of the trade routes in the district, which 'had no road worthy of the name', in 1874, was an extension of rice-cropping and an invasion by Hindu cultivators into the hill and forest villages (Dewar, 1920: 4). The Cutchi traders also encroached on the tribal villages for the minor produce of the Zamindari forests, e.g., mahua, lac, myrobalans, etc. The local Brahmins, Cutchi Muhammadans and Marwaris bought grains and sold imported cotton thread, salt, tobacco, kerosene oil and cloth, but their methods and scale of trading were different. The increase in trade is significant, as reflected in an increase in the number of Marwari traders in Sambalpur, who engaged in trade throughout the year, from 1223 in 1891 to 2867 in 1901 (O'Malley, 1909: 136).° The increase in the price of land, rice and the export from the district and the expansion in transport meant prosperity for a particular class of the agrarian population (Hamid, 1921: 25 and 15), who furthered their material gains during the scarcity of 1897 and the famine of 1990. This resulted in the outmigration of the aboriginals, labourers and poor raiyats