UPPER INDIA. 75 



Irrigation from wells would, in a country where shallow 

 cultivation of the soil is the rule, have the effect for some time 

 of increasing the produce of the land. Seeing this, the cul- 

 tivators would migrate from the higher lands, where the spring 

 level of the water was at a greater depth from the surface, 

 and where, from the looser and more sandy nature of the soil 

 and subsoil, the wells were more liable to fall in, to the lower 

 lands, where the spring level of the water was nearer the 

 surface, where the wells would not require to be so deep, and 

 where, from the greater firmness of the soil, the wells were 

 not so liable to fall in as on the higher lands. The diminished 

 fertility of the higher lands from continuous cropping without 

 manuring, and the scanty crops raised on them, contrasting 

 unfavourably with the crops grown by irrigation on the lower- 

 lying lands, which had probably been uncultivated and covered 

 with jungle, and were freshly broken up, would be another 

 reason for migration to the lower lands. 



The higher lands being deserted would go out of cultivation, 

 and the ridges round the fields would not be kept up, as was 

 formerly the case when under cultivation : this would induce 

 greater surface- drainage, and lead to greater damage from 

 that cause. 



As irrigation extended, consolidation of the extended area 

 of the irrigated lands would increase and cause further sur- 

 face-drainage. 



As the surface- drainage increased, the less water would 

 remain in the soil, and more would have to be supplied to 

 produce a crop. The more water supplied the harder and 

 more impermeable would the soil become; the greater the 

 impermeability of the soil to water supplied by irrigation the 

 sooner would that water be lost by evaporation, and a further 

 supply of water be required. 



When irrigation was limited to what could be done from 



