Wherever the
army of this chief moved they invariably swept off the groves of
fruit-trees in the same reckless manner. Parts of the country, which
they merely passed through, have recovered their trees, because the
desire to propitiate the Deity, and to perpetuate their name by such
a work, will always operate among Hindoos as a sufficient incentive
to secure groves, wherever man has be made to feel that their rights
of property in the trees will be respected.[6] The lands around the
village, which had a well for irrigation, paid four times as much as
those of the same quality which had none, and were made to yield two
crops in the year. As everywhere else, so here, those lands into
which water flows from the town and can be made to stand for a time,
are esteemed the best, as this water brings down with it manures of
all kinds.[7] I had a good deal of talk with the cultivators as I
walked through the fields in the evenings; and they seemed to dwell
much upon the good faith which is observed by the farmers and
cultivators in the Honourable Company's territories, and the total
absence of it in those of Sindhia's, where no work, requiring an
outlay of capital from the land, is, in consequence, ever thought of-
-both farmers and cultivators engaging from year to year, and no
farmer ever feeling secure of his lease for more than one.
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