76 CLIMATE AND EESOURCES OF 



wells, the laborious systems of raising the water from them, 

 and the expense, was a pretty safe guarantee of water being 

 but sparingly used. Some canals were dug in Upper India 

 in the times of the Mahommedan emperors, but these do not 

 appear to have been used to irrigate lands under grain crops, 

 or, if so, to a very small extent, and their effect for good or 

 bad on the country generally could hardly have been felt. 



This increasing demand for water would lower the spring 

 level, the wells would have to be deepened, the water would 

 have to be raised from a greater depth, entailing greater 

 expense, until at length canals were undertaken to supply 

 water at a cheaper rate than it could be raised from wells ; 

 these canals, by furnishing a greater supply of water, have 

 exaggerated the evil, and now, those portions of the country 

 first subjected to canal irrigation are covered with reh and are 

 sterile, and the produce of land more lately brought under the 

 influence of the canals is yearly decreasing. 



This evil has been caused by thinking that engineering was 

 agriculture, or could supplant agriculture ; that water was 

 the one thing wanted for agriculture, and that water being 

 supplied by engineering works agriculture must succeed, a 

 grievous mistake, as is evident to every one but the irriga- 

 tionists a mistake which has cost an immense amount of 

 money ; but governments, as well as individuals, must pay 

 for experience. 



If irrigation had been absolutely necessary, and crops could 

 not have been grown without its aid, there could have been 

 no help for it ; but when we see the evil results of irrigation, 

 and know that cultivation can be carried on without it, and 

 without injury resulting to the land nay, further, that the 

 land, under another and more rational system of husbandry, 

 may be yearly improving in quality, the quantity of the pro- 

 duce being steadily increasing till the maximum per acre were 



