1892-93 0.57 1897-98 7.34 1893-94 0.40 1898-99 8.14 1894-95 0.96 1899-1900 9.26 1895-96 4.40 1900-01 14.01 1896-97 6.75

The system of allotment of land may be interesting.  As the area under irrigation was entirely open and unoccupied, few difficulties were met with, and the engineers were perfectly free in plotting the land.  The entire area was divided into squares of 1,000 feet boundary on each side, and these squares were each divided into twenty-five fields which measure about one acre and are the unit of calculation in sales and in measuring water.  Sixty squares, or 1,500 fields, compose a village, and between the villages, surrounding them on all four sides, are canals.  Between the squares are ditches, and between the fields are smaller ditches, so that the water can be measured and the allowance made without difficulty.  The government sells no smaller piece than a field of twenty-five acres, but purchasers can buy in partnership and afterwards subdivide it.

Each village is under the charge of a superintendent, or resident engineer, who is responsible to a superior engineer, who has charge of a number of villages.  Each field is numbered upon a map, and a record is kept of the area cultivated, the character of the crops sown, the dates or irrigation and the amount of water allowed.  Before harvest a new measurement is taken and a bill is given to the cultivator showing the amount of his assessment, which is collected when his crop is harvested.  As there has never been a crop failure, this is a simple process, and in addition to the water rate a land tax of 42 cents an acre is collected at the same time and paid into the treasury to the credit of the revenue department, while the water rates are credited to the canal department.

The chief engineer fixes the volume of water to be furnished to each village and the period for which it is to remain flowing.  The local superintendent regulates the amount allowed each cultivator, according to the crops he has planted.  There are six rates, regulated by the crops, for some need more water than others, as follows: 

Class.  Crops.  Rate per acre.
    1—­Sugarcane $2.50
    2—­Rice 2.10
    3—­Orchards, gardens, tobacco, indigo,
       vegetables and melons 1.66
    4—­Cotton, oil seeds, Indian corn and all cold
       weather crops, except grain and lentils 1.66
    5—­All crops other than specified above .83
    6—­Single water to plow, not followed by a crop .40

As I have shown you from the figures above, this enterprise has proved highly profitable to the government, and its management is entitled to the highest compliments.