72 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM ‘INDIA 
At this stage then, Farid Khan does not come before us 
as an agrarian reformer. He worked the system which 
he found in existence, and made the best of it by close 
personal supervision; accepting in substance, as we may, 
the chronicler’s assurance of his success, we may fairly 
infer that it was due to the man rather than the methods. 
For about twenty years after his dismissal, the man was 
engaged in tasks of a different nature, and when we next 
meet him, it is in the person of Sher Shah, King of Hindustan, 
reorganising the administration in the light of his past 
experience. Before, however, we turn to his constructive 
work, a few words must be said on certain points affecting 
the Lodi period. 
[ have found nothing to show what share of the produce 
was claimed as revenue at this time. It is prima facie 
improbable that the Afghan kings and their assignees should 
have been content with less than could be realised, but their 
claims probably varied with varying power of enforcement ; 
diversity may therefore be conjectured, but in the absence 
of any authority the question must remain open. For a 
time, the revenue continued to be collected in cash, but, 
as we have seen above, early in the sixteenth century 
grain-collection was made the rule. A few details are 
available regarding the conditions of tenure of Assignments. 
For one thing, it is clear that the allocation of these had 
raised difficulties in regard to any small Grants or endow- 
ments which might be included in them: Sikandar Lodi 
issued general orders under which the assignee was bound 
to respect existing tenures of the kind! The same passage 
mentions that the assignees’ accounts were settled at the 
Revenue Ministry without formalities or difficulties; while 
we are told also (iv. 453) that under Sikandar the assignee 
was allowed to keep any excess over the nominal Valuation 
which he could secure from his Assignment. In this latter 
respect, the procedure was much more favourable to the 
assignee than that which prevailed in the Mogul Empire, 
when excess realisations were claimed by the State, as we 
shall see in a later chapter. Apart from Assignments, 
! Elliot, iv. 447, 8. The terms used for the small tenures are milk and 
wazifa. At other periods wazifa commonly meant a stipend paid in cash.