Gazetteer Of The Kangra District Vol I

· 1883 · Public domain (published pre-1930) · archive.org ↗

1[Punjab ftazietteer,

2124 CHAR III.— THE PEOPLE.

3Chapter III, D. In JKangra there are on an average two shareholders in each

4# holding, so that each proprietor owns two acres only, and each

5pillage Communi- tenant’s share of his farm comes to one acre only * In taluka Santa,

6*Areao£ lioldhr a * K&ngni, the average area of a proprietary holding is as low as 2|

7rta o ways. niK f the average assessment as high as eight rupees ; and in

8iol aha Bamgarb, where there is very little irrigation, it is three

9acres and five rupees* In Niirpur the average size of the holdings

10would not be much larger than in the rest of the district, if the large

11estates in the plain talukas of In d aura, Kheran, Sdrajpur, &c., were

12kept out of the calculation* In the northern talukas the average

13size varies from seven to ten acres, and there are nearer three than

14two shareholders to each holding. In Debra the land is most sub-

15divided in tala kas Harlpur, Mangarh, and Balihar, where the hold-

16ings range between three and four acres. In Hamirpur they are

17much of a size everywhere* In Kangra proper as a whole (exclu-

18sive of the talukas of Ntirpur, which lie outside the hills) 6| acres

19of arable land owned jointly by two brothers or cousins is the

20ordinary type of a proprietary holding, and three acres cultivated

21jointly by two brothers of a tenancy.

22“ Subdivision writes Mr* Lyall, “has, I fancy, reached its lowest

23point ; in fact, as it is, if all. these people relied on their land only for a

24livelihood, numbers would be starved. But a great number of the smaller

25proprietors and of the tenants carry on some other trade and avocation in

26their village, or send out one or two members of the family to work for hire

27at a distance, and among the better classes nearly every family has some of

28its members away on service in some part of India, I have seen an

29ancestral estate of some twenty acres held on shares by twenty kinsmen ;

30the whole estate was cultivated by four of the shareholders ; the other

31sixteen were away on service of different kinds in every part of India ; hut

32the wife or mother of each shareholder was living independently in a

33separate house on the estate, and taking harvest by harvest her one-

34twentieth of the landlord’s half of the produce from the four cultivating

35kinsmen. In the Gaddi villages and in Bajgiri I have seen land so minute-

36ly divided that the owners were, perforce, obliged to cultivate it jointly, but

37when the crop was ripe each harvested his own patch separately.”

38It must be remembered that in the hills no part of the arable

39land is specially devoted to growing fodder for the cattle, as in the

40plains. In the irrigated valleys, where there is little waste, the

41cattle who are fed on rice straw and what little grass they can pick

42up, are half starved at some seasons of the year, and die in great

43numbers from this cause and from the effects of the hard labour in

44the mud of the rice fields. The cost of replacing them is a heavy

45item in the fanning expenses, and the landowners, with few excep-

46tions^ are exceedingly poor. On the other hand, the mountain or

47hill villages generally contain much waste grazing land, and the

48landowners in them are, on the whole, better off, as each man can

49make some money by breeding and selling cattle, sheep, and goats,'

50and by making and selling a little gld or clarified butter.

51' Kh&ret&n or hay ■ , 'Although the, people graze their beasts indiscriminately in waste

52; ■ m^ertes. lands among the hamlets, guided only as to where they should go-

53by certain vague rules of custom based upon mutual coitvenience,

54yet certain parts of such waste are appropriated, for a part of; the