April 1908.] 



365 



Miscellaneous. 



Since, however, even these " irreconcil- 

 ables" admit one exception to this 

 principle in the case of irrigatioual agri- 

 culture, let us consider for a moment the 

 value of this concession. If we refer 

 once more and for the last time to the 

 statistics, we learn that of a total area 

 annually cultivated in British India of 

 226 million acres, over one-fifth part is 

 irrigated from canals, wells or tanks ; 

 and of this area of some 45 million acres, 

 10 million acres have been brought under 

 irrigation from canals which have been 

 constructed by the State within the last 

 thirty years. 



Now, the precarious character of the 

 rainfall is the greatest curse of the 

 Indian cultivator, and a regular supply 

 of water is the chief burden of his prayer. 

 Vicissitudes of drought and flood (and 

 mainly drought) in many tracts threaten 

 his very existence, and everywhere 

 hamper his prosperity and impede the 

 improvement of his cultivation. It is 

 idle to talk of the proper rotation of 

 crops and the value of the selection of 

 seed to a man who is compelled to deter- 

 mine according to the exigencies of each 

 season what crop is likely to come to 

 maturity at all, and to return him a bare 

 subsistence for his labour. Thus, over 

 large areas he will prefer cotton or millet 

 according as the early rainfall of June is 

 scanty or plentiful, and at the last 

 moment open for his choice he will have 

 recourse to the village store, and accept 

 from the trader the remnants of a weevil- 

 eaten seed-bin. His skill and courage in 

 securing a catch-crop in the face of 

 heart-breaking calamities have won him 

 the respect and admiration of all com- 

 petent judges, but in these sterile regious 

 what hope of improvement of his lot is 

 offered to him by Nature ? 



It is only in recent years that this 

 question has been seriously taken in 

 hand by Anglo-Indian engineers, but the 

 progress made has been little short of 

 marvellous. Their pre-eminence in hy- 

 draulic engineering is cordially recog- 

 nised throughout the world and needs 

 no commendation here. The conditions 

 with which they have contended have 

 varied greatly ; in North- Western India 

 the snows of the Himalayas constitute an 

 inexhaustible reservoir and give a con- 

 stant supply to the rivers from which 

 canals have been conducted into deserts 

 practically devoid of rain. In Southern 

 India, the rivers starting from the low 

 ranges of the Western Ghats are fed 

 only by the capricious monsoons, and the 

 main canals are either confined to the 

 deltas in the Madras Presidency, or are 

 dependent for their storage on artificial 

 lakes of immense size.. 



Wherever it has been found possible 

 to construct these canals, agricultural 

 conditions have been revolutionised. 

 Millets, pulses, and short-stapled cotton 

 have given place to sugar-cane, wheat, 

 rice, spices, and oil-seeds. 



The traditional lore of the rvot is no 

 longer of any avail, he must learn the 

 methods of cultivation of crops, of which 

 neither he nor his ancestors have had 

 any experience ; and the mistakes which 

 he makes are a powerful factor in pre- 

 venting the full utilisation of the water 

 placed at his disposal. As the man who 

 has never handled a sovereign cannot 

 administer with wisdom a sudden for- 

 tune, so the ryot, accustomed to scanty 

 falls of rain, does not know what to do 

 with the streams that permeate his land 

 in copious abundance. He cannot under- 

 stand that excess of water may be in- 

 jurious. Over-irrigation exposes his 

 wheat to attacks of rust, damages the 

 quality of his sugar and the fibre of his 

 cotton, and want of drainage renders his 

 fields infertile from water-logging and 

 the rise of alkali. 



Here, then, we see a wide scope for the 

 energies of the new department. It is 

 computed that the produce of an acre of 

 irrigated land is in many districts equiva- 

 lent to the produce of three to four acres 

 of dry-crop land, and the value of the 

 crops grown under irrigation must be a 

 large percentage of the total agricultural 

 wealth of the country. The Gover nment 

 of India is committed to a programme of 

 great magnitude in further irrigatioual 

 expansion ; tracts of country larger than 

 the whole cultivated area of Egypt will 

 shortly be traversed with a net-work of 

 new canals ; the success of these canals 

 and the continuance of this policy will 

 be greatly influenced by the skill and 

 rapidity with which the cultivators 

 adapt themselves to the new systems of 

 agriculture required. In facilitating this 

 change, the Department of Agriculture 

 can play a great part, audi venture to 

 submit that, even if we dismiss its other 

 activities as visionary, and regard it sole- 

 ly as the handmaid of irrigation, it will 

 justify its existence. 



IRRIGATION IN BENGAL. 



The total area leased for irrigation in 

 Bengal during the official year 1907-08 up 

 to the end of September last was 791,822 

 acres, as against 758,077 acres for the 

 corresponding period of the previous 

 year.— Indian Trade Journal, Vol. VII. , 

 No. 87, Calcutta, Thursday, 28th Novem- 

 ber, 1907. 



