The mirror., 1918-09-26

This is the evil which the irri-
eating engineer set out to combat,
WITH the result that the India today,
the babble of agitators notwith-
standing, is now enjoying visibly
larger share of prosperity and i'm
munity from starvation than she
ever knew under even the best of
her native rulers. This is due
largely to the great State irrigation
works carried out in the Presiden-
cies and the Local Governments
and Administrations.
In these works up to the present
time about thirty EIGHT million
pounds have been sunk, and by
them twenty-five and half million
acres are rendered productive. If
we include the schemes which have
been carried out by the ruling
princes in the various native
States, and by private enterprise,
we find that there are now fif-
ty-three million acres of irrigated
land in India, an artifcially wa
tered territory equal to the total
area of the United Kingdom. And
it is not a question of making two
blades of corn grow where one
grew before, but of growing corn
and rice and sugar where, without
irrigation, the land would be a
desert.
When we remember that sixty
five per cent of the population of
India is engaged in agriculture, the
importance of irrigation to those
living where droughts are perennial
evils may be grasped. Millions of
money have been sunk in order to
avert the periodical famines that
have ever been the curse of the
country, and these millions almost
all return good dividends hand
some ones in many instances. The
average is six and a half per cent,
while the cultivators of the soil re-
ceive good returns on their rents
for the water.
Districts as large as English
counties are thus saved from
drought, enriched by the waters
damned and stored in the rainy
seasons, for some of these districts
would be under food during one
portion of the year and parched
during the remainder.
The problems increasingly con-
fronting the men who scheme the
irrigation works in this vast East
ern empire are extremely perplex-
ing. Over that enormous extent
of country all kinds of irregular
conditions exist, the principal of
which are the extremely variable
character of the rainfall, the condi-
tion of the soil, and the nature of
the crops raised. The average
rainfall over the whole of India is
forty-two inches in the year; that
is to say, forty-two inches would
be the depth of rainwater if it
we're distributed equally over the
entire country. But in some dis
tricts the annual rainfall is only
one fourth of this; in others it is
more than double. The extremes
are represented by five inches in
some cases and by nearly five hum
dred inches in others.
Then the rainfall of any district
cannot be regarded apart from the
nature of the soils. These com.
prise in some districts, vast allu.
vial tracts of yellow loam, clay,
and sands; in others, the black cot
ton soils of the Deccan trap, where
cotton is mostly grown; in others,
again, the crystalline and sandstone
formations occur. Crops, too. diff
fer greatly in the extent of their
need of irrigation. Cotton does
not ordinarily require any irriga-
tion, and very little even in years
of drought. Barley only wants
irrigation in a dry year, but wheat
requires a good supply, as does