190 GNATS OR MOSQUITOES — CHAPTER VIII 



Of course the canal authorities do their best to lessen 

 such wastage of the precious fluid, and a cultivator may be 

 charged double rates if detected in permitting any con- 

 siderable waste, but the areas administered are so large, that 

 numbers of such cases must pass undetected, and a leakage 

 promptly repaired, would probably not be punished, though 

 it may easily have lasted long enough to produce a consider- 

 able puddle. 



The means proposed by the Canal Department to 

 prevent water-logging of the land they irrigate are : — 



(a) To carry their canals along the line of water-shed. 



(b) To so arrange the minor channels as to avoid their 

 being carried across the natural lines of drainage. 



(c) To limit the supply both as to quantity and time to 

 the amount absolutely required for the success of the crops. 



(d) The making of drainage cuts along the natural lines 

 of outfall. 



Of these the last is probably by far the most efficient, 

 but the attempts that have been made in this direction have 

 hitherto been of a tentative character and on no very large 

 scale. 



With the water brought so near the surface as it often 

 is, it is obvious that it would be quite possible to use it 

 over again by raising it by pumping ; but under the present 

 conditions of Indian agriculture the cost of such a system 

 would obviously be prohibitory. 



It will be observed that none of the above propositions 

 can have any influence in preventing loss of water from the 

 main canal and its permanent branches. 



This loss, as we have seen, amounts to over a quarter of 

 the entire intake, and as the amount of water that can 

 be taken from the supplying river is limited, cannot be met 

 by increasing the speed of the flow, so that the water thus 

 wasted has a large and definite money value ; and the stop- 

 page of this loss becomes an object in which considerable 

 capital might profitably be expended. It is needless to say 

 this aspect of the question can hardly have escaped the con- 

 sideration of the administration of so successful a " pro- 

 ductive " department as that of our Indian canals, and I 



