IRRIGATION IN INDIA AND 

 AMERICA. 



BY. E.-H. PARGITER, OP THE IRRIGATION BRANCH, PUBLIC WORKS 

 DEPARTMENT, PANJAB. INDIA. 



(Continued from last month.) 



But after the cessation of the scanty rains in the mountains, in a 

 year of drought, the rivers soon fall very low, and become quite in- 

 sufficient to supply the demand for water from them. The supply 

 that each canal obtains has to be very carefully distributed, and 

 economically used, so as to allow of as large an area as possible, be- 

 ing irrigated. This is now done by running each distributary or 

 branch, full, for a few days at a time; all getting thus a supply in ro- 

 tation. This, fortunately, can easily be done during the cold weather 

 months as a rotation period of one month can be given, it not being 

 necessary to water the crops then grown, oftener than once a month. 

 During the hot weather months it is necessary to allow water to be 

 given every fifteen days at most; but then the supply is ample, and 

 can be given, usually, whenever wanted, without having to carry out 

 any system of working the different branches in rotation in order to 

 economize the supply. 



Having already mentioned the canals supplied by the Rivers 

 Ganges and Jumna, there remain in upper India those supplied by the 

 five rivers of the Panjab, viz. : the Indus and its tributaries. Each of 

 these rivers now has, or will in course of time have a large perennial 

 canal taking out on its left or south bank, near where it commences its 

 long course through the great plains; with a permanent weir across 

 the whole width, able to dam up the whole cold weather discharge, if 

 necessary, and turn it into the canals. Lower down the courses of 

 these rivers in the very arid tracts of country in the South West Pan- 

 jab, and in the province of Sindh, there are numerous small canals on 

 both banks, called inundation canals, as they are chiefly designed to flow 

 only during the hot vreather months when the rivers are in flood. In 

 Sindh some of these are large and important canals, and have a fair 

 supply during the cold weather months also, so they are really per- 

 ennial, not inundation canals, though usually classed as inundation 

 canals, because their system of working more nearly resembles that of 

 the latter, than that of the former. 



Of the large perennial canals alluded to, three are completed and 

 irrigating large tracts of country; the Bari Doab Canal from the River 

 Ravi was first commenced, soon after the annexation of the Panjab, 



