A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c18.27.2

c18.27.2

Tenancy cultivation was quite common, especially on lands belonging to temples and other corporate institutions, the terms of the tenancy being fixed either by the terms of the original endowment or by separate negotiation in each case. Very often such tenants had rights which made them more or less part-owners of the land they cultivated. The distinction between garden land, including flower-gardens and orchards, in the neighbourhood of capital cities, land under wet cultivation and that under dry cultivation, and forest land was carefully maintained for taxation and other purposes, wet lands being further divided into several grades according to their natural fertility. Besides cultivating food grains and pulses on both wet and dry land, intensive flower and vegetable growing and the raising of commercial crops like cotton and sugar-cane were also widely practised. Black land and red land are particularly mentioned in Chālukya records besides the usual wet land, garden land and waste land. Betel and arecanuts, ginger and turmeric, fresh fruits and flowers, were the chief items of garden produce. Abdur Razzak noticed the number of rose merchants in Vijayanagar and added that roses seemed as necessary as food to the people of that city. The importance of irrigation was well understood from early times; dams were erected across streams and channels taken off from them wherever possible.