In 'wet' land 'white paddy' is the uniform standard crop. The calculation of the quantity of produce of standard grain per acre of each class and sort of soil, is called 'determining the grain-value.' It will be remembered that the produce figure accepted for the 'grain-value' represents a fair average crop, allowing for good and bad years.

Next, this crop is to be valued; and the 'commutation price' is the average price (per garce=4800 seers of 80 tolás) of the twenty non-famine years immediately preceding the Settlement1.

But these are merchants' prices: so a correction 2 of 15 per cent. is made, to allow for the raiyat's selling at lower rates, for cost of cartage, and for difference of prices, &c.; and a further deduction of to is made for vicissitudes of season, as well as to allow for the fact that we have been dealing with survey acreages which include the whole superficies, while, in fact, parts of it produce no grain, being paths, water-channels, or banks of fields.

6

Against the average grain-value we have next to set off the cost of cultivation,' which is estimated on certain items of general experience, the details of which need not be gone into 3.

Having deducted this, the result is the 'net produce,' and half of this is the Government revenue.

The principle always has been that the assessment is to be moderate. The old rates (as we have seen) were generally based on 50 per cent. of the gross produce for wet, and 33 per cent. for dry, land. When revision began, the maximum was reduced to 30 per cent.; the average being about 25 per cent.

But in course of time a 'gross produce percentage' was not considered sufficiently accurate. Net produce was to be ascertained by deducting the cost of cultivation, &c., and in 1864, the Government share or revenue was fixed at half the duly ascertained net produce.

1 G. O. No. 881, dated 30th July, 1885.

2 Settlement Manual, pp. 29, 30, gives 8-20 p.c. but a latter G. O.

No. 1134 of 6th December, 1878, fixes 15 p.c.

3 Ibid. Sections 32 et seq., p. 30.

§ 17. Illustration-Figures applied to 'Wet' Land. An example from 'wet land' (for a change) may illustrate the whole subject:

Measures. R. a. p. R. a. p. R. a. p. R. a. p. R. a. p. R. a. p. R. a. p.

VII. 4.

600

21 15 O

4 6 2 9 2 5 13 8 7 8 6 5 4 3 2 4 o

The Government revenue is fixed so as to reject the small fractions. If the reader does not remember the meaning of VII. 4 in the first column he will look back to the Standard Table of Soils (p. 61, ante).

Now, as we have said, it is not needed (nor would the result be equable) to make this calculation for each field independently. It will evidently happen, that a number of different classes and sorts of soil will, on calculation, show nearly the same net produce,' and therefore the revenue-rate will be uniform for them all. Then it will be sufficient to draw up a table of class and sort rates (called 'taram'), which will apply equally to several soils. But the 'grouping' of the village has to be allowed for in the assessment, and this is arranged for by gradation of 'taram.' Thus a set of soils in the first (normal or favourably situated) group would command the first or highest taram; in the second group they would command the second only; and so on.

This system has gradually been perfected in simplicity and breadth. In some of the older Settlements as many as 800 different rates varying from R. 35 to a fraction of a rupee, were applied 1. Now, no district has more than thirty rates in the 'wet' scale and twenty-eight in the 'dry.'

At one time (in 1879) it was thought possible to draw up standard 'wet' and 'dry' tables of tarams for all the soil classes, which could be applied at once to each field in a district so soon as its soil class was known 2. This table

1 Statement of Moral and Material Progress presented to House of Commons,

1882-83, p. 142.

2 Mr. Wilson explained (No. 3293

Chingleput, North
But the hope of

was actually made use of in the Arcot, and Coimbatore Settlements. universally adopting so simple a table, proved too sanguine. When submitting (in 1884) proposals for the Settlement of the Madura district, Mr. Wilson tested this standard scale by working out rates for each class and sort of soil, taking the outturn and cultivation expenses from the sanctioned Settlements of adjoining and similarly situated districts, and the commutation-rates from the price returns of the Madura district. The order of Government was as follows: The results of the application of the standard scale of rates to the Settlement of the Madura district, in which it is used for the first time, show that the process of verification adopted by the Director, cannot, with safety, be dispensed with. The Director, therefore, proposes that for each district, the Settlement of which is taken up in future, an independent scale should be worked out on the data supplied by the Settlements of other similarly situated districts without reference to a standard scale. This proposal is supported by the Board and is accepted by Government1.'

I shall, nevertheless, give this standard scale, because the student will not mistake the use I make of it, which is merely to serve as a concrete example of the way in which a few 'taram' rates on a sliding scale, can be made to apply to a considerable variety of soils, and how the grouping of villages according to advantage or disadvantage of situation can be allowed for without making a new scale for each group. For the mere purpose of such illustration, it is obviously immaterial whether the rates are actually true for any one or more districts :

A., dated 15th November, 1884, to Board of Revenue) that in 1879, he found twenty-three Settlement schemes affecting, in whole or part, thirteen districts. In these thirtyfive rates (varying from R. 12 to R. 1) had been adopted for 'wet' and twenty-eight rates (from R. 20 to four annas for dry. He then discarded very exceptional rates and neglected small fractional differen

:

ces, and so reduced the number of rates that could be taken for the several different soils against which they are placed in his table. R. 2 was taken as a minimum payment, because if wet land could not pay that, it could not be worth irrigating at all.

Quoted from the Settlement Manual, p. 23.

Observations on the Tables.

The soils are briefly expressed by figures; 'class II' can only mean the second class of the first series or permanently improved land: 'Sort No. I means 'good,' as 2 does 'ordinary,' and 3 'inferior.' So if we take 'VII. 3,' this means Red ferruginous series, loamy, ordinary: because I is here 'best,' 2 'good,' 3 'ordinary,' 4 inferior,' and 5 'worst.'

In every case one Roman and one Arabic numeral will express every series, class, and sort of soil in the table (see page 61, ante).

Dry lands.-The table shows no rate for class I of either sort--because islands (lanká) can only occur in certain rivers, and the exceptional rate for such cases can be specially supplied when wanted.

The class II may, in its actual physical properties, be soil of any kind; but it is put into a special class, because its having been worked up into garden or permanently improved, which gives it a new character and properties. This soil 'ordinary' (II. 2), it will be observed, is equal to the 'best' regar clay (III. 1).

Inferior clay regar (III.4) is on an equality (as to its value for assessment purposes) with quite a number of other soils: e. g. with 'best, sandy, regar' (V.1), or with 'good, loamy, red ferruginous' (VII. 2.), or with 'best, loamy, arenaceous' (XII. 1).

Wet lands.-The table contains no rate for class I or class II, as these are not 'wet lands' yielding white paddy as the standard grain. Note also that 'best, loamy, regar' (IV. 1), is higher in value when irrigated than 'best clay regar' (III.1) irrigated; the value being reversed in unirrigated land. A large number of soils from III.4 to XIV.1 come under the fifth taram (R. 7 per acre) when in the first group, according to advantage of situation and means of irrigation, level, &c.

This table explains the application of tarams according to the group. We need not calculate out new rates for all the lands in the second group.

Land that commands the first or highest taram (R. 12) in group first, is allowed the second taram only (R. 10-8) if it is in the second group; or the third (R. 9) if it is in the third group; and so on.

No rate below R. 2 is given, as already explained.