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BAR
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a great number of the long-armed levers which, loaded with a heavy mass of clay impend over the mouths of the wells, are idle even in the watering season, and a look down the cavity will reveal the fact that the sides of the well have fallen in, and that the owners are digging it out again. As a rule, the wells have to be scooped out and the twig lining replaced every second day, often twice a day further, the water is hardly ever deep enough to fill the clay pitcher which is used it comes up half full, a thin stream trickles along the channel, and in many villages only five to seven kachcha biswas can be watered by two men working, as they say themselves, far into the night. A kachcha biswa is about 55 square yards it will take two men fourteen days to water an acre once, and will cost
As a general rule, the as^mis, when questioned, said they could not afford to water twice, the labour is so enormous those who do admit that two or three waterings are advantageous. Melons and sugarcane get seven or eight waterings. Many of the tenants decline to dig these wells where the subsoil is sandy they point to heaps of earth evidencing vain attempts previously made, and say that it does not pay to make three or four wells which fall in before any water is drawn. In some districts it is like prospecting for minerals or digging for treasure rather than a regular agricultural operation. I give an actual example of the difficulties encountered. In Fatehpur, Kale Khan, Shekh, employed twenty-eight men, to each of whom he paid one anna and one ser and a half of juar to water four kachcha bighas of wheat once from a distant tank this cost him Es. 3-12 or Es. 4-6 per acre for one watering. Further, when his waterinsc Tvas half finished, the old yeomen proprietors of the village, now included in a taluqa, rose and threatened to burn his haggard if he drew any more water, although he had been authorized to draw from this tank by the lord of the manor. The cultivators declare that well water is superior to that from tanks for irrigation in the proportion of ten to seven. Es. 3-4.
The custom 'iiggi'^g-
in well
The following official note on the subject of digging wells in Bara Banki is by the late settlement officer of the district
"
As by
actual practice with respect to construction of kachcha wells, cultivators not possessing right of occupancy, and as to the digging of kachcha wells by the above class, I beg to report that e. little difference of opinion exists as to the tenant's right to dig a well without ask&c.,
to
ing permission. I am clear, however, that in the majority of cases no such permission is asked and where it is, there is some special reason. One very usual incident is that the well is dug not exactly in the tenant's holding, but in the patch of '^sar land outside here permission would naturally be asked from the lord of the soil, as also where the landlord's sanction is required for a carrying water-course across intervening holdings. The pure and simple digging a kachcha weU in the tenant's own land I believe to be whoUy within his power. I may add that tenants having leases do not vitiate them by digging wells, or even by a really objectionable practice from the landlord's point of view, viz., planting groves. The landlord only insists on his power of cutting down the grove at re-entry, leaving the wood with the lessee or his grantee. The landlord gives no aid in the making of kachcha wells. The ordinary cost of a
