My first charge.--How we get our lands.--Our home farm.--System of
farming.--Collection of rents.--The planter's duties.
My first charge was a small outwork of the large factory Seeraha. It
was called Puttihee. There was no bungalow; that is, there was no
regular house for the assistant, but a little one-roomed hut, built on
the top of the indigo vats, served me for a residence. It had neither
doors nor windows, and the rain used to beat through the room, while
the eaves were inhabited by countless swarms of bats, who, in the
evening flashed backwards and forwards in ghostly rapid flight, and
were a most intolerable nuisance. To give some idea of the duties of
an indigo assistant, I must explain the system on which we get our
lands, and how we grow our crop.
Water of course being a _sine qua non_, the first object in selecting
a site for a factory is, to have water in plenty contiguous to the
proposed buildings. Consequently Puttihee was built on the banks of a
very pretty lake, shaped like a horseshoe, and covered with water
lilies and broad-leaved green aquatic plants. The lake was kept by the
native proprietor as a fish preserve, and literally teemed with fish
of all sorts, shapes, and sizes. I had not been long at Puttihee
before I had erected a staging, leading out into deep water, and many
a happy hour I have spent there with my three or four rods out,
pulling in the finny inhabitants.
Having got water and a site, the next thing is to get land on which to
grow your crop. By purchase, by getting a long lease, or otherwise,
you become possessed of several hundred acres of the land immediately
surrounding the factory. Of course some factories will have more and
some less as circumstances happen. This land, however, is peculiarly
factory property. It is in fact a sort of home farm, and goes by the
name of _Zeraat_. It is ploughed by factory bullocks, worked by
factory coolies, and is altogether apart and separate from the
ordinary lands held by the ryots and worked by them. (A ryot means a
cultivator.) In most factories the Zeraats are farmed in the most
thorough manner. Many now use the light Howard's plough, and apply
quantities of manure.
The fields extend in vast unbroken plains all round the factory. The
land is worked and pulverised, and reploughed, and harrowed, and
cleaned, till not a lump the size of a pigeon's egg is to be seen. If
necessary, it is carefully weeded several times before the crop is
sown, and in fact, a fine clean stretch of Zeraat in Tirhoot or
Chumparun, will compare most favourably with any field in the highest
farming districts of England or Scotland. The ploughing and other farm
labour is done by bullocks. A staff of these, varying of course with
the amount of land under cultivation, is kept at each factory. For
their support a certain amount of sugar-cane is planted, and in the
cold weather carrots are sown, and _gennara_, a kind of millet, and
maize.
Both maize and gennara have broad green leaves, and long juicy
succulent stalks. They grow to a good height, and when cut up and
mixed with chopped straw and carrots, form a most excellent feed for
cattle. Besides the bullocks, each factory keeps up a staff of
generally excellent horses, for the use of the assistant or manager,
on which he rides over his cultivation, and looks generally after the
farm. Some of the native subordinates also have ponies, or Cabool
horses, or country-breds; and for the feed of these animals some few
acres of oats are sown every cold season. In most factories too, when
any particular bit of the Zeraats gets exhausted by the constant
repetition of indigo cropping, a rest is given it, by taking a crop of
oil seeds or oats off the land. The oil seeds usually sown are mustard
or rape. The oil is useful in the factory for oiling the screws or the
machinery, and for other purposes.
The factory roads through the Zeraats are kept in most perfect order;
many of them are metalled. The ditches are cleaned once a year. All
thistles and weeds by the sides of the roads and ditches, are
ruthlessly cut down. The edges of all the fields are neatly trimmed
and cut. Useless trees and clumps of jungle are cut down; and in fact
the Zeraats round a factory shew a perfect picture of orderly thrift,
careful management, and neat, scientific, and elaborate farming.
Having got the Zeraats, the next thing is to extend the cultivation
outside.
The land in India is not, as with us at home, parcelled out into large
farms. There are wealthy proprietors, rajahs, baboos, and so on, who
hold vast tracts of land, either by grant, or purchase, or hereditary
succession; but the tenants are literally the children of the soil.
Wherever a village nestles among its plantain or mango groves, the
land is parcelled out among the villagers. A large proprietor does not
reckon up his farms as a landlord at home would do, but he counts his
villages. In a village with a thousand acres belonging to it, there
might be 100 or even 200 tenants farming the land. Each petty villager
would have his acre or half acre, or four, or five, or ten, or twenty
acres, as the case might be. He holds this by a 'tenant right,' and
cannot be dispossessed as long as he pays his rent regularly. He can
sell his tenant right, and the purchaser on paying the rent, becomes
the _bona fide_ possessor of the land to all intents and purposes.
If the average rent of the village lands was, let me say, one rupee
eight annas an acre, the rent roll of the 1000 acres would be 1500
rupees. Out of this the government land revenue comes. Certain
deductions have to be made--some ryots may be defaulters. The village
temple, or the village Brahmin, may have to get something, the
road-cess has to be paid, and so on. Taking everything into account,
you arrive at a pretty fair view of what the rental is. If the
proprietor of the village wants a loan of money, or if you offer to
pay him the rent by half-yearly or quarterly instalments, you taking
all the risk of collecting in turn from each ryot individually, he is
often only too glad to accept your offer, and giving you a lease of
the village for whatever term may be agreed on, you step in as
virtually the landlord, and the ryots have to pay their rents to you.
In many cases by careful management, by remeasuring lands, settling
doubtful boundaries, and generally working up the estate, you can much
increase the rental, and actually make a profit on your bargain with
the landlord. This department of indigo work is called Zemindaree.
Having, then, got the village in lease, you summon in all your tenants;
shew them their rent accounts, arrange with them for the punctual
payment of them, and get them to agree to cultivate a certain
percentage of their land in indigo for you.
This percentage varies very considerably. In some places it is one
acre in five, in some one in twenty. It all depends on local
circumstances. You select the land, you give the seed, but the ryot
has to prepare the field for sowing, he has to plough, weed, and reap
the crop, and deliver it at the factory. For the indigo he gets so
much per acre, the price being as near as possible the average price
of an acre of ordinary produce: taking the average out-turn and prices
of, say, ten years. It used formerly to be much less, but the ryot
nowadays gets nearly double for his indigo what he got some ten or
fifteen years ago, and this, although prices have not risen for the
manufactured article, and the prices of labour, stores, machinery,
live stock, etc., have more than doubled. In some parts the ryot gets
paid so much per bundle of plants delivered at the vats, but generally
in Behar, at least in north Behar, he is paid so much per acre or
_Beegah_. I use the word acre as being more easily understood by
people at home than Beegah. The Beegah varies in different districts,
but is generally about two-thirds of an acre.
When his rent account, then, comes to be made out, the ryot gets
credit for the price of his indigo grown and delivered; and this very
often suffices, not only to clear his entire rent, but to leave a
margin in hard cash for him to take home. Before the beginning of the
indigo season, however, he comes into the factory and takes a cash
advance on account of the indigo to be grown. This is often a great
help to him, enabling him to get his seeds for his other lands,
perhaps ploughs, or to buy a cart, or clothes for the family, or to
replace a bullock that may have died; or to help to give a marriage
portion to a son or daughter that he wants to get married.
You will thus see that we have cultivation to look after in all the
villages round about the factory which we can get in lease. The ryot,
in return for his cash advance, agrees to cultivate so much indigo at
a certain price, for which he gets credit in his rent. Such, shortly,
is our indigo system. In some villages the ryot will estimate for us
without our having the lease at all, and without taking advances.
He grows the indigo as he would grow any other crop, as a pure
speculation. If he has a good crop, he can get the price in hard cash
from the factory, and a great deal is grown in this way in both
Purneah and Bhaugulpore. This is called _Kooskee_, as against the
system of advances, which is called _Tuccaree_.
The planter, then, has to be constantly over his villages, looking out
for good lands, giving up bad fields, and taking in new ones. He must
watch what crops grow best in certain places. He must see that he does
not take lands where water may lodge, and, on the other hand, avoid
those that do not retain their moisture. He must attend also to the
state of the other crops generally all over his cultivation, as the
punctual payment of rents depends largely on the state of the crops.
He must have his eyes open to everything going on, be able to tell the
probable rent-roll of every village for miles around, know whether the
ryots are lazy and discontented, or are industrious and hard-working.
Up in the early morning, before the hot blazing sun has climbed on
high, he is off on his trusty nag, through his Zeraats, with his
greyhounds and terriers panting behind him. As he nears a village, the
farm-servant in charge of that particular bit of cultivation, comes
out with a low salaam, to report progress, or complain that so-and-so
is not working up his field as he ought to do.
Over all the lands he goes, seeing where re-ploughing is necessary,
ordering harrowing here, weeding there, or rolling somewhere else. He
sees where the ditches need deepening, where the roads want levelling
or widening, where a new bridge will be necessary, where lands must be
thrown up and new ones taken in. He knows nearly all his ryots, and
has a kind word for every one he passes; asks after their crops, their
bullocks, or their land; rouses up the indolent; gives a cheerful nod
to the industrious; orders this one to be brought in to settle his
account, or that one to make greater haste with the preparation of his
land, that he may not lose his moisture. In fact, he has his hands
full till the mounting sun warns him to go back to breakfast. And so,
with a rattling burst after a jackal or fox, he gets back to his
bungalow to bathe, dress, and break his fast with fowl cutlets, and
curry and rice, washed down with a wholesome tumbler of Bass.