Page 69 - Muzaffargarh Gazzetteer

taken, and the chief grounds for enhancement were the increase in palms
and orchards and the rise in prices. Against this must be set the insecurity
of the district, which was dependent on two uncontrolled rivers; the history
of the last 20 years had shown what little reliance could be placed on them.
On the whole, there was no scope for a large increase in revenue.
Circles under Crop Rates Assessment
Experience had shown the general lines on which any assessment had to be
made, and when the Settlement Officer joined the settlement, the people as
a whole were contented with the method by which their particular holdings
were assessed, except for the general agitation against well assessments. The
obvious way of meeting this agitation, which inspections, as already
described, showed to be just, was to extend to Alipur and the riverain circles
of Kot Addu and Muzaffargarh the system adopted by Captain Crosthwaite
in the Layyah riverain. No attempt was made to classify the wells, or rather
an attempt which was made after the operations of the new settlement began,
was abandoned. A classification was, in fact, impossible if the people were
called on to make it; the man of influence would invariably have his well
written down several classes. Generally speaking, no official of lower rank
than a Tehsildar had the necessary knowledge to classify a well, and to give
one the power to do so was to invite to be corrupt. No senior official could
possibly see the majority of the wells more than once, and the inspection of
a single harvest in the District Muzaffargarh would lead to no useful result.
The Khasra Girdawaris showed the area of the crops, but not their quality
and anyhow an average of say, five years cropping seldom gave a true picture
of the well. All that could be said safely about a well was that, so long as the
flood supply was suitable, the owner would be able to afford good cattle, and
would have sufficient manure to grow the best kinds of crops. The most
prosperous owners cultivated cane, pepper, fruit and similar garden crops.
The less prosperous grew as much wheat as possible, or, if the canal water
was very abundant, rice followed by gram, and if they could, enough of the
Kharif grains to feed themselves or their labourers. On a well with a really
bad flood supply the area of wheat was decreased, and cotton, bajra and
jowar were grown in its place. The changes in cultivation caused by a change
in flood supply were well shown in Kot Addu and in the centre of Alipur; in
the latter area cane had been replaced by wheat, and rice by cotton.
Similarly, the crops grown in brackish soil in Kot Addu had been replaced by
excellent rice and gram. The Alipur wells had been assessed on the cane
grown at the settlement, with a result that 20 years later the bad wheat now
grown was paying about three times what it should. In Kot Addu the
assessment based on the poor wheat was for less than what the rice and
gram should have been paying. The wells thus grouped themselves by their
crops, and if a reasonable rate could be worked out for each class of crop, a
well was likely to continue indefinitely to pay a fair assessment whatever
accident might befall the flood supply.

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