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2 which this tax islevied and administered than by anyother circumstance
3 whatever, the extreme importance of the subject is manifest.
4 38. The husbandmen and the husbandry of these Territories have
5 General description of been described in former Reports. It suffices now
6 Crops. - to touch upon certain prominent features by way
7 of recapitulation. The cultivation, though considerable and increasing,
8 is far from being fully developed ; not more than one-fourth of the total
9 area is cultivated. This cultivation, though greatly dependent upon
10 rain, is yet for the most part maintained by irrigation from wells or
11 canals, The great staples are cereals, Three-fourths of the crops consist
12 of wheat, barley, Indian corn and maize of all sorts, and rice. In various
13 parts, sugar (of excellent quality), gram, cotton, indigo, linseed, turnips,
14 pepper, tobacco, turmeric, poppy, hemp, vegetables, are grown ; and in all
15 places, some or other of the above products are to be found. But all the
16 miscellaneous products last named united do not cover more than one-
17 fourth of the cultivated area, the rest being occupied by cereals. There is
18 vast pasturage, and there are enormous numbers of sheep, goats, camels,
19 and bovine-cattle, the latter of stunted breed. The cultivators are essen-
20 tially “ peasant proprietors.” There are no farmers
21 or middlemen, *and generally no great landlords,
22 As a rule, each man owns and tills his own glebe, upon which he pays
23 the Revenue and pockets all the profits. In some countries the profits
24 ate divided ; a part goes to the tenant and a part to the landlord. But
25 in the Punjab one and the same man is usually absolute proprietor and
26 generally the sole cultivator, though he may occasionally lease out a
27 few fields to tenants. He is saddled with no rent. He has to provide
28 for the cost of cultivation and for the Government demand ; the rest of
29 the produce he may devote to the maintenance of his family and
30 the accumulation of his capital. But these men, while maintaining
31 their individuality, do yet belong to village communities. A village
32 is not inhabited by a certain number of rypts, each unconnected with the
33 * other, but by a number of persons of common descent, forming one large
34 cousinhood, having their own headmen, accustomed to joint action and
35 mutual support.*
36 Peasant proprietors.
37 *In some of the waste tracts, however, near Mooltan, where portions of an area
38 called a valley, have been gradually reclaimed by independent parties, the common bond
39 between such parties might not exist ; but such cases are exceptional.