=Storage of Grain.=—These pits or trenches are fixed on elevated dry spots; their size being according to the nature of the soil. All the preparation they undergo is the incineration of certain vegetable substances, and lining the sides and bottom with wheat or barley stubble. The grain is then deposited in the pit, covered over with straw, and a terrace of earth, about eighteen inches in height, and projecting in front beyond the orifice of the pit, is raised over it. This is secured with a coating of clay and cow-dung, which resists even the monsoon, and is renewed as the torrents injure it. Thus the grain may remain for years without injury, while the heat which is extricated checks germination, and deters rats and white ants. Thus the regent has seldom less than fifty lakhs of maunds in various parts of the country, and it is on emergencies, or in bad seasons, that these stores see the light; when, instead of twelve rupees, the _mauni_ runs as high as forty, or the famine price of sixty. Then these pits are mines of gold; the regent having frequently sold in one year sixty lakhs of maunds. In S. 1860 (or A.D. 1804), during the Mahratta war, when Holkar was in the Bharatpur State, and predatory armies were moving in every direction, and when famine and war [543] conjoined to desolate the country, Kotah fed the whole population of Rajwara, and supplied all these roving hordes. In that season, grain being fifty-five rupees per _mauni_, he sold to the enormous amount of one crore of rupees, or a million sterling! Reputable merchants of the Mahajan tribe refrain from speculating in grain, from the most liberal feelings, esteeming it _dharm nahin hai_, ‘a want of charity.’ The humane Jain merchant says, “to hoard up grain, for the purpose of taking advantage of human misery, may bring riches, but never profit.” According to the only accessible documents, the whole crown-revenue of Kotah from the tax in kind, amounted, under bad management, to twenty-five lakhs of rupees. This is all the regent admits he collects from (to use his own phrase) his handful (_pachiwara_) of soil: of course he does not include his own farming system, but only the amount raised from the cultivator. He confesses that two-thirds of the superficial area of Kotah were waste; but that this is now reversed, there being two-thirds cultivated, and only one-third waste, and this comprises mountain, forest, common, etc.