A GROHA
9I
Dufferin Fund. There are about twenty printing presses, and four
weekly and six monthly papers are published. Agra is noted as the
birthplace of Abul Fazl, the historian of Akbar, and his brother, Faizi,
a celebrated poet. It produced several distinguished authors of Persian
and vernacular literature during the nineteenth century. Among these
may be mentioned Mir Taki and Shaikh Wall Muhammad (Nazlr).
The poet Asad-ullah Khan (Ghalib) resided at Agra for a time.
Agra Canal.-An important irrigation work in Northern India,
which receives its supply from the right bank of the Jumna at Okhla,
about ii miles below Delhi. It protects a tract of country which
suffered considerably in the past from famine. The weir across the
Jumna was the first attempted in Northern India on a river having a bed
of the finest sand; it is about 800 yards wide, and rises 7 feet above
the summer level of the river. In 1877 a cut was made from the
HINDAN river to the left bank of the Jumna close to the weir; and
water from the Ganges Canal can thus be used, when available, to
supplement the supply in the Jumna, which sometimes falls short.
The total length of the main canal in I904 was Ioo miles; of branches,
9 miles; of distributaries, 633 miles; of drainage cuts, 191 miles; and
of other channels, 57 miles. The main channel was completed in
1874, and irrigation commenced for the spring harvest of I875. The
total capital outlay to 1904 was 102 lakhs. The canal commands an
area of 597,000 acres, of which about 8,000 acres are situated in
the Delhi and 210,000 in the Gurgaon District of the Punjab, and
228,000 acres in the Muttra and 51,0ooo in the Agra District of the
United Provinces. The total area actually irrigated in 1903-4 was
260,000 acres; the gross and net revenues were 8-4 and 5.6 lakhs, and
the net revenue represented 5-5 per cent. on the capital outlay. The
gross revenue has exceeded the working expenses in every year since
1876-7, and the net revenue has been larger than the interest charges
on capital since I896-7; but taking the whole period of existence of
the canal, the interest charges have exceeded the net revenue by nearly
14 lakhs. The total length open for navigation was 125 miles,
including two branches to the Jumna at Muttra and Agra, 9 and I6
miles in length, which cost 1.8 and 4-9 lakhs respectively, and were
made especially for this purpose. The traffic is, however, small, and in
1903-4 only 14,221 tons of goods, valued at Rs. 90,000, were carried.
The navigation receipts were Rs. I,600, and the expenditure was
Rs. 6,500. Navigation was finally stopped in 1904, as it interfered
with irrigation, which is the prime object of the canal.
Agra Barkhera.-Thakurat in GWALIOR AGENCY, Central India.
Agroha.-Ancient town in the Fatahabad tahsil of Hissar Dis-
trict, Punjab, situated in 29° 20' N. and 75° 38' E., 13 miles north-west
of Hissar. It is said to be the original seat of the Agarwal Banias, and
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