It was stated in Chapter II. that the construction of masonry outlets on a distributary is not usually a final settlement of the matter. In many cases a proper proportion of water does not reach the tail. Even in such a case matters have occasionally been left alone, or the old and pernicious system of closing the upper outlets has been resorted to. In such circumstances the irrigation of a group of tail villages will be found to be less than that of a group higher up, the people to some extent acquiescing in the old idea that a tail village must be a sufferer. Government, or at least the Irrigation Department, has no particular direct interest in the matter. The total area irrigated, will probably be very much the same in any case. But an engineer who takes an interest in this part of his work will not allow matters to remain long in the state described. He will, of his own accord, adjust the outlets and equalise, as far as possible, the irrigated percentages. The people will disturb matters to some extent by enlarging watercourses, but there is a limit to this and it can be met by an occasional reduction of an outlet. A distributary, when once its outlets have been carefully adjusted, attains to something approaching perfection in its working. Any excess in the supply is taken partly by the upper outlets but part of it gets to the tail. Similarly any deficiency in the supply is distributed over the channel. The outlets which have a poor command and small head are most affected in either case. On the whole they do not lose or gain more than the others. The working of such a distributary causes great satisfaction to the engineer and not the least ingredient in this is the knowledge that he has wholly destroyed the power of his native subordinate. In an inundation canal division in the Punjab, some dozen distributaries, varying in length from 5 to 28 miles, and with discharges ranging up to 300 c. feet per second, were dealt with as above in one season. The engineer in charge being specially desirous that sufficient water should reach the tails, reduced the sizes of some outlets too much. When an outlet of 1 or 2 sq. feet has to be reduced to a small fraction of its size it is not easy to say what the fraction shall be. Water reached the tails of all the channels in sufficient quantity, in some cases in rather more quantity than was necessary. When the irrigation register was examined, it was found that the general results were entirely satisfactory. In a small proportion of cases outlets had irrigated too little and had to be re-enlarged somewhat. After a second season hardly any changes were needed. When any silt clearance or berm-cutting seemed necessary the irrigation register again came into play. If, for instance the tail outlets, as a whole, were receiving too little water, enlargement of the upstream reaches was effected with consequent lowering of the water level there.