A Child Sits Upon The Pole Or Lever And Keeps The Animals To Their Work.

There is no specified limit to the depth at which this instrument can work, as it must depend upon the length of chain and the number of jars, which of course increase the weight and strain upon the machinery and animals.

In Cyprus, where the water is generally near the surface, the advantages are obvious, and I feel convinced that no modern invention is so well adapted for the Cypriote cultivator.

The cost of erection of such a machine complete, together with the sinking of the pit, is calculated, at an average of localities, as 12 pounds; a pair of oxen will cost 10 pounds: thus the water-wheel in working order will amount to 22 pounds. One wheel will irrigate eighty donums, or about forty acres of cereals, but the same instrument would only suffice for about six acres of garden ground, which requires a more constant supply of water. It may therefore be understood that in calculating the power of a water-wheel, various conditions must be considered, and I shall confine myself to the farm, upon which it will be necessary to establish one water-wheel or sakyeeah for every forty acres; this entails a first outlay of eleven shillings per acre; and at once ensures the crop and renders the farmer independent of the seasons. But including the cost of constructing the numerous water-channels of clay to conduct the stream to the desired fields, together with the expense of erecting the reservoirs of masonry upon a sufficient scale, I should raise the original outlay for irrigation by cattle-wheels to 20 shillings per acre (1 pound). This would include the services of a pair of oxen for other work when the sakyeeah should not be required.* (*The wheel I have described is double the power of those in general use in Cyprus, where a single animal works the sakyeeah, and it would irrigate a larger acreage.) According to this calculation, which exceeds by a large margin the figures given to me by several native farmers, the owner of a hundred acres must only expend 100 pounds to ensure his annual crops!

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