Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/194

186 KHE alone. In time it is to be hoped that the natives will do as the Dutch under very similar circumstances have done, viz., employ the wind to control the water, and turn the latter into a beneficial agent. Windmills alone can be employed to drain such large areas of superabundant water or to supply them with what is deficient; in fact, to restore the balance and plenty which alternate floods and drought destroy. The circumstances are exactly analogous, except that the more tenacious soil and compara- tively healthy climate of north Kheri would probably assure still greater success for such works than has attended them in the fens of Lincoln and Holland. “In draining one of these morasses, or inland seas, and rendering it fit for cultivation, the first operation consists in damming it in with a ran- part of earth sufficiently strong and high to prevent foreign water from flowing into it. Outside this rampart or dyke a ringsot or surrounding drain is made, of dimensions sufficient to be a navigable canal. Windmills are then erected on the edge of the dyke, each of which works a water- wheels Pumps are very seldom used in draining, as the water is usually highly charged with silt, and is not required to be raised a very great height. The instruments employed are, the scoop-wheel the screw of Archimedes, and the inclined scoop-wheel, or ckhardt wheel. When a great undertaking of drainage is going on houses are erected in a con- venient situation on the dyke, where the engineers and a committee of the proprietors constantly reside and carefully watch the progress which the windmills are making. "In most cases the undertakers are compelled by Government regula- tions to complete the drainage at a certain period of the year, for the very obrious reason that, if the ground were not cleared of the water until the beginning of the summer heat, the exhalations would materially increase the marsh fevers which generally prevail in the first years of an extensive drainage."— Murray's Hand-book of the Continent, page 12, Other staples.—The increased cultivation of turmeric, potatoes, yams, tobacco, sugarcane, for all which the soil of north Kheri is well adapted, will also furnish security that in future scarcity of food grains will not become real famine. The following table gives the price of the food grains during the scarcity of 1869-70 :- Retail sale quantity per rupee. July, Septen- August. Novem- January, Febru- Articlcs. 1869. ber. October. ber. 1870. агу. . M. 8 0 Dr. S. c. M. B. 0. M, s.o. M. S. c. Whcat, 1st quality, o 12 11 011 1 0 10 11 0 10 5 0 10 2 Bitto, 2nd ditto, 0 130 0 11 6 0 10 15 0 10 9 0 10 11 Gram, and ditto, 0 16 14 0 12 10 0110 10 14 0 10 13 Bájra ID 011 5 0 10 0 0 10 0 0 14 12 0 20 8 Juár 0 6 9 0 16 4 0 18 2 0 14 12 0 20 0 Arhar 0 17 9 0 16 0 0 14 8 0 19 4 0 11 12 Urd 12 5 0 11 20 11 4 09 15 0 10 13 Masar 0 16 5 0 15 10 18 8 0 10 40 69 Múng 0 7 6 07 0 6 6 06 0 0 7 12 Rice, and quality, 0 8 8 09 0 8 8 0 10 8 0 II 13 PU M. 9. c. M. 8. c. 061 4 0 10 11 0 11 8 0 10 16 0 12 0 0 12 12 0 18 0 0 18 O 0 27 0 0 26 12 0 3 0 0 19 8 0 1680 168 0 1300 15 0 0 10 2 10 14 0 0 13 00 18 4 .