Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/313

 BAR roasted ju&.

At present,*

i. e.,

235

just after the harvest

when judr

is

cheapest,

worth nine panseris or 20 pakka sers per rupee. Therefore, the eighteen men will get a little ahove seven annas worth of grain each. One irrigation of these, 3,600 yards, will therefore come to one rupee nine annas, or three rupees two annas for the two waterings which are absolutely required in most seasons this will be four rupees three annas per acre. From a small kachcha well, about eight kachcha biswas the people allege six can be watered by a man and a boy in a day the man pulls up a water pot over a pulley, the boy guides the water.

it is



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They will thus water an acre in twelve days at a cost of two rupees four annas, or four rupees eight annas per acre. In addition, this kind of well has to be dug afresh every year ; this costs about one rupee eight annas, to be distributed over five acres so that this kind of irrigation will cost about four rupees thirteen annas per acre.

A

cheaper kind of apparatus can be used in some wells, namely, a leather bucket drawn up by a pair of bullocks or four men they will work continuously about two-thirds of a day and water one bigha and a half, or one thousand six hundred square yards, costing with the man to guide the water only 7^ annas, or 22|^ annas per acre two rupees thirteen annas Most of these wells, however, will cost for the two waterings required. they will water about ten at least five rupees, being larger and deeper therefore eight acres and generally have to be dug afresh every year annas per acre must be added, and the cost of the well will be three rupees five annas per acre. The land-owners here whom I have conversed with never heard of unlined wells lasting for forty years, or for four either, except in rare cases. Artificial irrigation, which for wheat and other cereals would supply three waterings at Rs. 2-8 per acre, would be a boon undoubtedly if the peasants would find another market for their labour made idle by a canal. Whether the increased cultivation of garden crops, high farming generally, and the breaking up of waste lands would furnish The crops ordinarily irrigated, are wheat, sugarthat, is the question. cane, peas, maslir, besides the garden crops, which require more copious







waterings.

In another kind of well six men will puU up the leather bag ; three men will relieve half of them every hour, two men will work the buckets, and three distribute the water ; they wiU receive each a panseri or five sers kachcha mash, at present (December 1873) worth two annas almost; therefore the two bighas or two thousand one hundred square yards wiU

With such wells cost Rs. 1-12 for one watering, or four rupees an acre. the owners say that they cannot afford to water more than once. Beyond the Kalydni river to the north and east, all the weUs are of the small kind, in which only gharas can be used, suspended either from pulleys, These wells in or the most expensive kind of all, from dhenklis or levers. many villages may be seen in every second field ; water is only about 20 feet from the surface, and to the careless observer the supply of water will seem certain and abundant. Closer observation, however, will discover that » December 1873.