Read the following extract carefully and answer the questions that follow:
Irrigating trees and fields
This is an excerpt from the Baburnama that describes the irrigation devices the emperor observed in Northern India:
The greater part of Hindustan country is situated on level land. Many thought its towns and cultivated lands are, it nowhere has running waters … For … water is not at all a necessity in cultivating crops and orchards. Autumn crops grow by the downpour of the rains themselves; and strange it is that spring crops grow even when no rains fall. (However) to young trees, water is made to flow by means of buckets or wheels …. In Lahore, Dipalpur (both in present-day Pakistan) and those other parts, people water by means of a wheel. They make two circles of rope long enough to suit the depths of the well, fix strips of wood between them, and on these fasten pitchers. The ropes with the wood and attached pitchers are put over the wheel-well. At one end of the wheel axle a second wheel is fixed, and close to it another on an upright axle. The last wheel the bullock turns; its teeth catch in the teeth of the second (wheel), and thus the wheel with the pitchers is turned. A trough is set where the water empties from the pitchers and from this the water is conveyed everywhere. In Agra, Chandwar, Bayana (all in present-day Uttar Pradesh) and those parts again, people water with a bucket … At the well-edge they set up a fork of wood, having a roller adjusted between the forks, tie a rope to a large bucket, put the rope over a roller, and tie its other end to the bullock. One person must drive the bullock, another empty the bucket.
(i) Explain the irrigation technology as observed by the Emperor.
(ii) What was the necessity of irrigation?
(iii) Explain any three factors which are responsible for the expansion of agriculture in India.
Answers
Answered by
1
The answers to the given questions are as follows:
(i) The irrigation technology as observed by the Emperor are:
- The last wheel was turned by the bullock
- There are fixed strips of woods fastened with pictures between the circles
- From a trough, water was conveyed everywhere else
- A fork of wood having a roller was set up at the well
(ii) The necessity of irrigation was:
- Less rainfall
- Running water was nowhere
- For watering young trees
(iii) Three factors which are responsible for the expansion of agriculture in India are:
- Peasant's mobility
- Land abundance
- Growth of spring crops even in the absence of rainfall
Similar questions