APPENDIX VI. 



Copy of letter no. 175- L. of 30th September, 1914, from the 

 Chief Secretary to Government, United Provinces, to the Director of 

 Land Records and Agriculture, United Provinces. 



THE Lieutenant-G-overnor has recently been considering the 

 subject of ravine reclamation on a large scale throughout the 

 United Provinces. The ravine areas' of the province are well- 

 marked. They are not found on the great wandering rivers like 

 the G-anges, G-ogra or the Rapti, but they abound on the streams 

 with more defined channels and bight banks, like the Jumna, Sote, 

 Chambal, and others in every part of the province. In some places 

 the ravines are spreading much more rapidly than in others, but in 

 all cases they result in considerable loss to the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood. Where they are spreading they cause actual loss of 

 cultivable land, and whether stationary or spreading they result 

 in a rapid rush of water from the up-land which causes impoverish- 

 ment of soil, loss of moisture, and a lowering of the water-level. 

 The subject has be^n noticed by a series of offioers,in the districts of 

 the present Jbansi division especially, as shown in a note, dated the 

 17th October, 1913, prepared by the Commissioner of Jhansi, a copy 

 of which will be sent to you subsequently. 



2. In view of the above considerations His Honour has decided 

 to arrange for a regular survey of the field for ravine reclamation. 

 The field for such a survey is so large that it would, in His Honour's 

 opinion, be better for the present to neglect such ravines as are 

 stationary and to concentrate attention upon those areas where 

 erosion is most wasteful. Experience has already been gained in 

 the Etawah district of the method in which ravines may be treated 

 by means of a series of embankments. In Etawah indeed the 

 process has been designed largely with a view to the encourage- 

 ment of grazing and afforestation, but the same system is equally 

 applicable to the process cf smoothing down and finally filling up 

 of the hollows of ravine ground. The desirability and practicability 

 'of embanking the up-lands where the slope commences to steepen 

 and thus preventing the impoverishment of the up-lands by the 

 washing away of good surface soil into the ravines is a matter 

 which has not received and should rec 3 ive adequate consideration 

 so as to prevent further erosion. From a general application of 

 schemes similar to those now in hand in the Etawah district to 

 areas in other parts of the province considerable benefits should 

 result. 



