50. Thus apparently canal irrigation is much cheaper than from wellsj 

 and in fact it would be to any one but the cultivator himself. Canal water, how- 

 ever, demands an actual outlay of cash ; well irrigation is carried out by 

 labour and material already present and not necessarily purchased, so that (as 

 I will show afterwards) there is no cash expenditure. At the same time Mr. 

 Burk has sufficiently proved the economy of canal irrigation to the cultivator 

 in " liberated labour," whereby he can devote the labour of his family and 

 cattle to the production of more valuable crops, e.g., indigo and cane, which 

 follow the introduction of canal irrigation. 



51. Tbe comparative value of canal arid well irrigation is a question 

 that has received as much attention as any other in Indian agriculture, but I 

 do not know that any certain result has been arrived at by experiment. Nor, 

 indeed, do I believe that any hard-and-fast rule can be laid down in matters 

 which contain so many points of variation. Complaints are rife against canal 

 water, chiefly pointing to one main result, decrease in the productive power of 

 the land so treated. From the first I gave much consideration to these com- 

 plaints, and I cannot do better than quote my Shiurajpur report on the conclu- 

 sion at which I arrived : 



" The complaints invariably made by the peasantry against the canal 

 &fe (1) that it destroys wells ; (2) that it chills the ground ; (3) that it en- 

 courages a strong growth of grass ; (4J that it does not produce a similar out- 

 turn to well irrigation 



" (1.) The first complaint is easily met by the fact that where it pays to 

 keep up non-masonry wells, as for vegetables, &c ; , they are always kept up, 

 and that though it is undeniable that the filtration does tend to make the wells less 

 durable, the argument is really one post hoc, ergo propter hoc; the ryots have fail- 

 ed to keep up their wells, and therefore attribute their destruction to the cause 

 that has led to their disuse. It is a question, too, to what distance this filtration 

 affects the subsoil. I have seen wells quite close to a canal working away 

 merrily, and I have seen old masonry wells at a considerable distance from the 

 canal said to have had the water-level raised in them by it. Again, the con- 

 stant rain of the last three years has indubitably raised the water-level, and wells 

 now fall in the sandy substratum which is above the brushwood binders, and 

 which commencement of percolation formerly did not reach. 



tl (2.) The second argument is so far tenable as that in certain places 

 readily recognizable, and for which allowance is readily made, the ground 

 has become soppy, and indeed unculturable. I confess, too, that I consider the 

 extravagant use of canal water, especially when obtainable flush, so differ- 

 ent* from the careful distribution of well water, where every drop is prized, 

 lias a r great_effect on the land, which I am not scientific enough to call by any 



