ACADEMICIA: An International Multidisciplinary Research Journal

Agriculture constituted the mainstay of the medieval Indian societies and provided the surplus upon which the non-producing social sections thrived. Nearly 85% population of northern India lived in rural areas where people were mainly engaged in agriculture. The economic conditions were affected to a certain extent by political developments. The situation had worsened due to endemic war fare, famine and breakdown of the government. Prevailing circumstances led to tremendous exploitation of peasantry. In the village society the local elite groups had achieved a remarkable control over the agricultural surplus. And expenditure by the nobility, setting up of semi-independent principality by powerful governors or nobles and with holding of revenue by some zamindars became marked when the central power was not strong enough. The cultivation had depended upon rainfall and inundation but some places on wells. Much of the land was irrigated by inundation (salabi). The network of irrigation channels immensely benefited. Well irrigation was a traditional method of irrigation almost as old as farming itself. In the northern parts of India well irrigation was important charas could be finally established. Two types of crops rabi and kharif were grown in north India. Rabi or the spring harvests (crops) were sown after the rain and reaped in the first three or four months of the year. Kharif crops were sown before the commencement of rain or in April, May and reaped after their close in October-November. Some people also rented out their gardens to the cultivators or professional fruit-sellers for profit, as is the custom even today. Hemp or the bhang was also cultivated. Tobacco was introduced in the seventeenth century. Coffee as a beverage had become familiar to aristocratic section of society. Beetle leaf was grown practically all over the region. More easily available cow dung was used as a fertilizer. This was largely because agricultural methods underwent no fundamental alteration during this period but agricultural production was not static. India did not experience an agricultural revolution till eighteenth century. The monsoon naturally displayed the same vagaries as they do at present and consequently the crops had great ups and down leading to periodic gluts of famines and scarcities.