NOTICES RELATING TO AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL lOI 



than one third of the amount advanced for the purchase of seed and fodder 

 should have been a charge on the returns of 1915-1916, but the ministry 

 decided to make no deduction from the advance of 2s. 6d. a bushel, and to 

 defer the collection of instalments until a further amount, or dividend, 

 should have been paid. Tliis concession seriously reduced the amount 

 received as repa3'ment of advances. Up to the end of the financial year 

 a sum of £95,535 was repaid out of the total sum of money lent in the pre- 

 vious 3'ear, £516,000. Of the balance one third is payable from the 1916 

 harvest and one third ma}' be carried on to the next year. For the year 

 1916 the number of crop liens registered was 3,032. 



BRITISH INDIA. 



THE COLONIZATION OF CANAL LANDS IN THE PUNJAB. — Van Burren Henry L- 

 in The Tropical Agrmdturist Vol. XLVII., No. 6, Peradenij'a (Ceylon), December 1916. 



The south western Punjab is part of a vast desert which may be said 

 to extend from the Sahara to Manchuria. It supported only a sparse and 

 nomadic population until 1849, when the British annexed this part of the 

 Punjab, and colonization of its desert wastes was not seriously thought of 

 until 1885 when a policy of canal irrigation was initiated. 



Five great perennial canals, which together irrigate a wheat area rather 

 more than twice the size of Ceylon, were then taken in hand. One of them, 

 completed in 1892, commands three and a third million acres, three fourths 

 of such area being State property, and irrigates over two and a half mil- 

 lion acres a year. The capital expended on it was 300 lacs of rupees (i) 

 which now bring in interest at the average rate of about 28 per cent. An- 

 other canal which was finished about 1911 irrigates some three quarters of 

 a milHon acres and pays interest on the capital invested in it at the rate of 

 more than 10 per cent. 



Before 1892 the population of the Ivyallpur district could not have been 

 more than 2,000. In 1912 it had increased to over 850,000. 



To settle so large an agricultural population was no easy matter. The 

 problem needed wise statesmanship, a very intimate knowledge of the peas- 

 ant farmer and his ideas, enthusiasm and a kindly sympathy. That these 

 are of more importance than the principles on which projects and schemes 

 were based should be emphasized. Thus Sir James Douie writes : — " The 

 colonies have been admirable training ground for the ablest of the yoiinger 

 Punjab officers. It was necessary to give them a pretty free hand, the work 

 was novel and important, and involved great responsibilities. While he 

 was controlled from outside, the colony officer inside his colony had to be 

 a benevolent autocrat. Autocracy is tolerable when the autocrat is con- 

 tent to be also the servant of liis people, and in this respect the Punjab offi- 

 cers did not show themselves lacking ". 



(i) I lac — • i,oo,oof rupees; i rupee = is \d. 



