Abstract

The Krishna Irrigation System extends from Ellore in the north right down to Chinna Ganjam in the south, and from Bezwada to almost within five miles of the sea. Roughly speaking the system commands an area of about one million acres in this tract. The at riculture of this vast area comprises almost exclusively the cultiva- tion of rice. An outline therefore of the main features of this cultiva- tion of paddy in the delta is the purpose of this paper. Before the introduction of the irrigation system in the early sixties of the last century the whole delta was one open flat dry country of black alluvium or regar loam and was cropped with all the dry crops such as we now see ordinarily raised in black soil tracts. There were of course here and there patches of wet cultivation under tanks which were either rain-fed, or received their supplies from the flood channels diverted from the Krishna. These lands are still known as "mamool" wet though included in the canal system.

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