salt, kerosene oil, gunny-bags, coal and coke, European cotton piece-goods, and raw cotton. Gram, pulses, and oilseeds are chiefly sent to Calcutta, and rice and other food-grains to Saran and Muzaffarpur. The imports of food-grains came for the most part from Bhagalpur and Nepal, coal and coke from Burdwary kerosene oil from the Twenty-four Parganas, and salt and piece-goods from Calcutta. Most fertile part of the village, use to produce all the most valuable rabi and bhadoi crops. In the low-lying areas, the main crop grown is winter rice, though in some parts good rabi crops are also raised on the lands. Rabi and Bhadoi crops were grown from 1800 until recently (1980). Villages like Umaidpur were chiefly dependent on the Aghani (or winter) rabi and bhadoi harvests. The village land falls into two classes: Bhith (uplands) and Dhanhar (low lands where water logging occurred during rainy season). Bhith was further classified as saliferous land or usher (soils in which salinity is mainly due to accumulation of alkali salts are called alkali soils) was found in patches in the outer area between good land and low-lying land. Nunia caste from the neighbouring village, Nauachak, used to extract saltpetere in the summer after rabi crop from these lands for their living. In these lands small farmers grew mainly 'Marua, also called mandua, nachini or Ragi' or Finger Millets (Eleusine coracana), Kauni (foxtail milet) and Sama (kutaki or little milet). In Bhith land, wheat, maize, and miscellaneous food-grains which consisted chiefly of , and oats. Food-crops grown also included potatoes, and suthni (Dioscorea fasciculate). The chief non-food crops are oilseeds. Tobacco and chilies are cultivated as commercial crops. Of the other non-food crops, kharhaul or thatching-grass was the most valuable, but now these lands are used for growing paddy. Governance Umaidpur became a part of Samastipur district, when Darbhanga district was split into three districts in 1972. Before British, the mention of this district in the Imperial Gazetteer of India (volume 11) goes back to A. D. 1400. When this area was taken over by the British in 1765, it was included in Silbah Bihar and formed with the greater part of Muzaffarpur District, the Sarkar of Tirhut. Bihar was retained as an independent revenue division, and in 1782 Tirhut (including Hajipur) was made into a Collectorate. In 1875 Tirhut was divided into the two existing Districts of Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga. The