In Madras 6,884,554 acres have peen irrigated by the government works at a cost of $24,975,000.  In 1902 they paid an average net revenue of 9.5 per cent upon the investment, and the value of the crops grown upon the irrigated land was $36,663,000.

In the united provinces of Agra and Oudh in northern India the supply of water from the Himalayas is distributed through 12,919 miles of canals belonging to the government, constructed at a cost of $28,625,000, which irrigates 2,741,460 acres.  In 1902 the value of the crops harvested upon this land was $28,336,005, and the government received a net return of 6.15 per cent upon the investment.  The revenue varies in different parts of the provinces.  One system known as the Eastern Jumna Canal, near Lucknow, paid 23 per cent upon its cost in water rents during that year.  In other parts of the province, where the construction was much more expensive, the receipts fell as low as 2.12 per cent.

In the Punjab province, the extreme northwestern corner of India, adjoining Afghanistan on the west and Cashmere on the east, where the water supply comes from the melting snows of the Himalayas, the government receives a net profit of 10.83 per cent, and the value of the crop in the single year of 1902 was one and one-fourth times the total amount invested in the works to date.

This does not include a vast undertaking known as the Chenab Canal, which has recently been completed, and now supplies more than 2,000,000 acres with water.  Its possibilities include 5,527,000 acres.  As a combination of business and benevolence and as an exhibition of administrative energy and wisdom, it is remarkable, and is of especial interest to the people of the United States because the conditions are similar to those existing in our own arid states and territories.

If you will take a map of India and run your eye up to the northwestern corner you will see a large bald spot just south of the frontier through which runs the river Chenab (or Chenaub)—­the name of the stream is spelt a dozen different ways, like every other geographical name in India.  This river, which is a roaring torrent during the rainy season and as dry as a bone for six months in the year, resembles several of out western rivers, particularly the North Platte, and runs through an immense tract of arid desert similar to those found in our mountain states.  This desert is known as the Rechna Doab, and until recently was waste government land, a barren, lifeless tract upon which nothing but snakes and lizards could exist, although the soil is heavily charged with chemicals of the most nutritious character for plants, and when watered yields enormous crops of wheat and other cereals.  Fifteen years ago it was absolutely uninhabited.  To-day it is the home of about 800,000 happy and prosperous people, working more than 200,000 farms, in tracts of from five to fifty acres.  The average population of the territory disclosed at the census of 1901 was 212 per square mile, and it is expected that the extension of the water supply and natural development will largely increase this average.