rely 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, t