226 H. G. McKINNEY. 



satisfactory, so that although irrigation would in many cases be a 

 useful adjunct, it cannot be regarded as a necessity. In fact owing 

 to the amount of the rainfall to the flow and percolation from 

 adjacent hills, and to the small height of the land above the rivers 

 and above sea level, drainage, as a general rule, is a much more 

 important question than irrigation throughout the coastal district. 



Drainage more important than irrigation in the coast district. — 

 There are points in connection with the conditions here which 

 remind the present writer of extensive drainage works on which 

 he was engaged many years ago near the lower parts of the 

 Eastern Jumna Canal. In that case there were extensive areas 

 of low-lying land which had become water-logged through proximity 

 to the canal and its distributaries. Although it was necessary to 

 drain these marsh lands, and although the average rainfall in the 

 district in which they were situated was fully 30 inches, the 

 irrigation from the Eastern Jumna Canal then gave, and it is 

 believed, still gives, a larger percentage return than any other 

 large irrigation canal in Upper India. Attention is called to this 

 by way of illustration of the fact that the presence of swamps which 

 require drainage works to carry off surplus water must not be 

 taken as an indication that irrigation would not be remunerative 

 in their neighbourhood. As a matter of fact there are many 

 places along the coastal district in which irrigation can be success- 

 fully practised. This is no mere matter of opinion, as the writer 

 saw a number of instances of the fact whilst acting as Judge of 

 Irrigated Farms and Orchards for the Department of Agriculture. 



Tablelands and western valleys of the Dividing Range. — Leaving 

 the coastal district and coming to the table lands and the defined 

 valleys on the west side of the Dividing Range, we are still on an 

 extensive belt of land throughout which there is a fair average 

 rainfall, and in which irrigation can scarcely be regarded as a 

 necessity. There are, however, many places here in which water 

 can be utilized on the land by gravitation, and there are also 

 many places in the valleys both of the main rivers and their 

 tributaries where ideal conditions exist both, as regards the nature 



