Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c15.3

c15.3

**Agriculture.** As we have already seen, the State had a large part of the agriculture of the country directly in its own hands in its vast Crown estates. No doubt, it did not interfere in the actual work of cultivation, provided its established share of the produce was paid in as the land revenue demand, but it was specially the State's business to organise and extend the agricultural productivity of the country by schemes of colonisation, encouraging the surplus population to settle new or abandoned tracts, and also by assisting the emigration of foreigners to settle in the country (*bhūtapūrvaṁ abhūtapūrvaṁ vā janapadaṁ paradeśāpavāhanena svadeśābhishyandavamanena vā niveśayet*).