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