Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/198

 190 RAE struction of wells; in a village with wells watering say one-third of the cultivated area, you are always able to let out the other two-thirds at fair rents to the cultivators of the former. "My part of the district is, as you are probably aware, densely populated, and there is a steady competition for land in most villages. A pakka well, in which the wator supply is insufficient to keep at work the full complement of purs, would scarcely pay any interest on the capital expended. In speaking of pakka wells, I consider an ordinary well ought to be about 7 or 8 feet in diameter, and on such a well eight purs could be worked. In 1869 I built a pakķa well 13 feet in diameter, and on this well, in the November of same year, I worked 18 purs daily for three days consecutively without being able to exhaust the water supply, the depth of water each evening varying from 9 to 10 feet. This well is sixty-six feet deep, the water levels being 36 feet from surface. Except on speci- fied cases, it would be difficult to give you any precise details about wells, for circumstances so change the aspects of the subject, that what is com- mon in one locality impossible in another. Again, the water found in some wells possesses peculiar properties. Brackish water, suitable for tobacco, poppy, sánwán, &c., is invaluable, and enables the cultivator to pay excessively high rents for the land irrigated therewith." Additional note by Mr. Gartlan.--"As I mentioned in my former letter on the subject, purs are not worked in my neighbourhood with coolies at the pull, when water is drawn for irrigation purposes. Men are only used to work the pur or baskets when a well cylinder is being sunk. The pakka bigha to which I refer equals 3,025 square yards, and the purs worked in my part of the country contain from 10 to 12 gallons of water. The pur which I use, and which is extensively used, contains when new about 3,400 cubic inches of water. “I think, however, that a pur worked by men will water one and a half times as much land as a pur worked by hullocks will do in the same time. You calculate that a pur worked by six men will cost nine annas, your calculation strikes me as moderate. The cost per pur worked by bullocks is something varying from five to six annas per day. As an asámi has not to pay ready cash in his irrigation operations, he does not realize to himself what the irrigation per bígha has cost him, “ Were canal water to have no evil effects on the soil, we should cer- tainly be glad to get the water as often as required during the season at the small cost of Rs. 2 per acre per annum. A permanent water rate would be disliked, the cultivator preferring of course to pay only for the water he might take; for in many seasons one watering is all that the crop requires. “In my former letter, when I stated that irrigation cost from Re. 1 to Rs. 2-4-0 per bigha, I meant that each irrigation cost about those amounts, and that consequently three irrigations for wheat would cost Rs. 3 per bigha at the least. I consider this latter estimate moderate. At the present day, one well rope and one pur cost Rs. 3, and they only last one year; no other cash expenditure is incurred in well irrigation by the asámi who employs no hired labour, and has not to dig his own well. Irrigation