FYZ
413
manage the
flow of water, will effect the irrigation of one local bigha (about 1,150 square yards) in a day. If their wages are, as is the case near Fyzabad, 2 annas a day, or its equivalent in grain, one watering will cost Rs. 2-8-0 per acre; if l| annas. Re. 1-14-0 per acre. Wheat, which requires three irrigations, will then cost Rs. 5-10-0 to Rs. 7-8-0 per acre. Opium, which is watered seven times, will cost Rs. 13-2-0 to Rs. 17-8-0 per acre. In many cases, however, the water is brought from these masonry wells up an incline by means of a series of lifts, which add greatly to the expense.
When the water is at 12 feet, as in the Tarai, three men with one pair of earthen pots on the pulley will water one local blgha in a day ; this will cost about Re. 1-9-0, or with the lower hire Re. 1-3-0 per acre for one watering; not more than two waterings are necessary in this damp ground, so wheat, except near the. larger towns, where the price of labour is high, will not cost more than Rs. 2-6-0 for irrigation per acre. In the latter case also the well will not cost more than one rupee, being unlined but in the former, the interest of the cost of the well at 15 per this will be Rs. 37 per cent, must be added to the cost of irrigation annum for a well costing Rs. 250. Now, not more than 12 acres can be irrigated in six weeks from such a well, and as the wheat crop must be irrigated once every six weeks, such a well will only supply 12 acres with water; therefore Rs. 3 per acre must be added to the Rs. 7 which wheat It will at once appear that the crop cannot bear the outlay in costs. for cattle and drinking. fact, the well water is used for pther purposes, Wells costing so much are not expected to pay as irrigation works.
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The tenants make masonry wells to supply themselves with water for drinking, or sometimes for religious purposes when that object has been fully attained in any village, they will cease to make wells solely for irrigation, and unless they can use unlined wells or tank water, the greater part of their crops will not be irrigated at all. Taking the distance of water from the surface at an average of 20 feet in Fyzabad, the cost of making the well, the interest of the money, and the labour of raising the water, will, it is apparent, through the greater part of the district, deter from the use of masonry wells merely for irrigation.
As about 140,000 acres are irrigated from wells, and 260,000 are not irrigated at. all, and cannot be irrigated except by making new wells, it is important to determine how. far masonry wells are successful as an irrigaThe cheapest form of masonry well that without mortion speculation. tar—costs about Rs. 6 per cubit if the shaft is made so broad as to admit use of two earthen buckets. For instance, in Birhar such wells are
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the
But a large at a cost of Rs. 100 with shafts sunk 20 cubits. rainfall heavy occurs, very and it a whenever in falls proportion of these use mortar,— a practice generally will be safer and cheaper as a rule to is the case throughout the followed by the people themselves. Such eight miles of the Gogra ; farther within district the of part northern as the soil has more cohesion. south, slighter linings are found sufficient, instance, a well whose shaft is for parganas, Pachhimr^th In ikaweli and at feet, can be mad^ for Rs. 40 for 15 lying water-level the long, 25 feet
now made
one pulley, or Es. 65
for
two pulleys;
this is
a
little
less
than Rs. 4 per
