322 LUC It may be remarked that the systems of relief known in Bara Banki and Sitapur are not commonly used here; meu work all day instead of half or three quarters, and get higher pay.* North of the Gumti circumstances differ slightly, and bullocks are hardly employed at all. Six men pull up the leather bucket, three are changed every hour for a spare three; thus, each batch of three works two hours and rests the third throughout the day. The gang consists of nine med, and three attending to the well and field as before. The water is about twenty feet distant, and the twelve will water about a bígha a day. Each man gets two sers of grain, maize, or peas, worth during the water- ing season about 26 sers the rupee. A bigha will then cost Re. 0-15-0 for one irrigation, Re. 1-8-0 per acre, but a serious addition to the cost north of the Gumti is the cost of digging the well. The springs are forty feet from the surface, and often, after thirty feet or more, have been dug. A stratum of wet sand intervenes, the sides of the well fall in, and the work has to be commenced over again in another place. It would appear that the actual irrigation from wells is much less than what is recorded in the settlement returns. The ruins of wells which had fallen in before water was reached, have been regarded as sources of irri- gation which had been abandoned, and which might be worked again. The cost of digging a well is about four rupees, and to this two rupees must be added for the labour bestowed upon those which have tumbled in. Each well then will cost six rupees, and will water about fifteen acres once in the season, therefore each irrigation will cost three rupees, distri. buted over fifteen acres for well-digging, or three annas per acre, in addi- tion to the Re. 1-8-0 already calculated. Now, no wheat crop should get less than three waterings in an ordinary season; these would cost then Rs. 5-1-0 per acre, and the tenants naturally protest that they cannot afford to give more than one or two waterings from wells. From tanks they often water the lands bordering on them three or four times. In Lucknow every crop is watered if the labour is available ; gram and barley are watered just as wheat and peas. Sugarcane gets four to six waterings; opium six. In fine, the elements of expense in irrigation are three the depth at which springs are met, the character of the soil through which the shaft is sunk, and third the copiousness of the springs. If the water is 20 feet from the surface, if the soil strata are sufficiently firm to admit
- The expenses of well-irrigation have been variously estimated, Mr. Ricketts, in the
Revenue Reporter, calculates that the cattle travel up and down the well slope at the rate of two miles an hour; that in this way they will, with a leather bag holding twenty gallong, allowing balf for wastage, water an acre in five and a half days. There ia uo allowance made in this calculation for the time the cattle opend in turning, nor for the time spent in shaking the rope to make the bag sink beneath ihe water. I tined ordinary well cattle to spend fifteen seconde going down a slope of thirty-four feet, and right seconds in com. ing up, sixty-eight feet in twenty-three seconds. This will be two miles and ninety feet per hour, but they only effected ope lift in each minute and a half, 67 seconds, nearly three times the time actually employed in the work of ascent and descent being wasted in pre- liminaries. In this instance the well pay bave been bad ope, but at any rate it is erj. dent that an important element of the calculation has been overlooked. Persian whøcl, have a graater advantage over the leathe bag and pulley inhis matter.
