28 SOCIAL SCIENTIST observed by F. Dewar in 1906 and Hamid in 1925.6 Hamid further observes that during the 20 years from 1902-06 to 1922-26, there was an increase of 42 per cent in irrigated area (op.cit: 23). But almost all the tanks and most of the wells belonged to the more prosperous sections of the agrarian population. This was so because the digging of these water reservoirs was labour intensive ,and the operation had to be completed in a limited time period priof to the ensuing rains. However, in spite of the substantial increase in the area under irrigation, overall productivity declined significantly.7 This was mainly due to the setback in agriculture during the periods after the famine of 1900 and the war of 1914-16. The famine took a toll of 74,170 people between 1 October 1899 to 30 September 1900 (a death toll of 93 per million on the last census population of 7,96,000). The price of rice rose sharply (with the value of 17 to 20 seers in normal years equalling that of 5 to 6 seers in 1900), due to hoarding by landlords, rich ryots, etc., and the export of rice in 1899, during the first half of the crisis. This must have adversely affected the aboriginals, labourers and smaller cultivators. Even though mortality by caste/category was not recorded, one can surmise that the 'conservative* aboriginals, who rarely attended the famine kitchens, and the poor peasants and agricultural labourers, who were afraid of future repayment in case they attended the kitchens, must have borne the brunt of the tragedy.8 Forced to work for miserably low wages and to mortgage/sell their belongings in a last bid for survival, their pauperisation was inevitable.9 The relative scarcity of labourers (after the famine), the low productive capacity of the semi-starved labourers and the under-development of the forces of production on the one hand, and the casual interest of the landlords (who had most of the irrigated land) in agriculture, on the other, resulted in lower productivity and a consequent small increase in the area under different crops . The First World War also led to increasing uncertainty and a sharp increase in prices, but by then the emphasis on agriculture seems to have declined. The increase in the area under paddy (transplant) and sugarcane shows that the Gountias and to some extent the large cultivators, who had the maximum of irrigable land, prospered much more than others. This would be more so because the investment in transplant paddy and sugarcane, especially the latter where the maturity period is fairly long, is more than in most other crops. The increase in the price of land during this period was not the result of increasing productivity but the increase in prices of agricultural commodities and 'improved* transport.10 The increasing alienation from land, as observed above, must have pushed the poor peasants and the aboriginals to depend on forest resources and forced them to clear land under forest. Both Dewar and O'Malley note the massive deforestation which started after 1887. The desperation of the poor peasants and aboriginals and their increasing dependence on the forests, on the one hand, and the appointment of 'respectable inhabitants of conveniently situated villages' as forest licence-vendors, on the other, led to an increase in earnings from this source, both for the colonial government and also the Gountias, etc., who were the 'respectable inhabitants.'11