COTTON 223 



the great injury of all subsequent crops. Rice is thus 

 employed as a recurring reclamation crop, and must 

 continue to be so used until the system of drainage is 

 completely revised to obtain for these areas the same 

 advantages as those which are found elsewhere. 



There are, in addition to the lands referred to, others 

 in which no drainage exists at all, and which are per- 

 manently without reclamation or crops. 



The greatest obstacle attached to the drainage of such 

 lands as those mentioned is that the proprietors of certain 

 portions are unwilling to combine with the remainder for 

 their mutual benefit; those having lands approximating 

 the main drains usually objecting to the drains of their 

 more remotely placed neighbours emptying into their own 

 drains or even passing through their lands. This state 

 of affairs has been brought about by the incompleteness 

 of the methods employed in the first instance for the 

 establishment of a canal and drainage system. The fact 

 that it is insufficient in any system of drainage to lay 

 down the main channels without at the same time putting 

 in the branch and subsidiary ones seems to have been 

 overlooked, with the result of a deadlock. 



A remedy which suggests itself is that the Govern- 

 ment should annually select blocks of convenient size, 

 and in these construct all the necessary feeder drains, 

 levying a tax upon the proprietors of the lands drained 

 to cover the whole cost of the upkeep. By this means 

 such a vast benefit would accrue to the present possessors 

 of the land to be drained that it is certain that the 

 majority would willingly agree to the adoption of such 

 a scheme. An increase of the cotton and wheat-growing 

 area and the decrease of that under rice would almost 

 immediately ensue, and the economy in water due to this 

 change would at once be apparent. 



It has been assumed that when the co-operative move- 

 ment has more fully developed the societies themselves 

 would undertake the work of improving and rendering 

 fit for cotton cultivation the lands of their less fortunately 

 placed members by giving them access to the main drains 

 through the lands of their more fortunate neighbours, 

 but, judging from the spirit shown by the people at this 

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