PKOCEEDINGS OP SECTION K. 649 



grown in ignited sand or distilled water, if the proper nourishment 

 is supplied. The barren regions of the earth are all capable of 

 being made reproductive under proper treatment, witness the 

 alkali-lands of Texas, and the salt-lands of Utah. Even the desert 

 yields abundantly in the fortunate places where springs occur, or 

 the land can be inundated by rivers. On the other hand, mis- 

 applied energy may convert fruitful country into unproductive, 

 and much of the desert and sterile land has once been fertile 

 country brought to its present condition by unthrifty husbandry. 



Travellers in Palestine tell us that its numberless hills are 

 covered with the ruins of what have once been populous cities, a 

 certain sign that the surrounding country has once not only been 

 fertile, but extensively cultivated to provide food for the town 

 populations. 



Sir Frederick Treves, the most recent visitor to record his im- 

 pressions of this country in his work " The Land which is Desolate," 

 contrasts the promised land " that floweth with milk and honey," 

 with the "poverty-stricken, miserly, thread-bare country" of to- 

 day. 



The plain on whicE the ruins of Babylon now stand is still 

 covered with a network of old canals, which served both to irrigate 

 and to drain what was in ancient days extremely fertile country, 

 but which is now divided between desert and marsh. 



Herodotus tells us of the remarkable fertility of Babylon in his 

 time, when it was a great commercial centre. 



Professor Heeren, in his work on the " Commerce, &c., of the 

 Principal Nations of Antiquity," tells us how the discovery of a 

 new path to India across the ocean converted the great commerce 

 of the world from a land trade to a sea trade, and thus Nineveh 

 " sunk to its original state of a stinking morass and a barren 

 steppe." 



This is that same Nineveh, the capital of a country which its 

 king described as " a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and 

 vineyards, a land of oil-olive, and of honey." 



There are many other instances where great and populous 

 centres have flourished at the expense of the surrounding country, 

 which they have finally impoverished and involved in their own 

 ruin, and this is a danger, probably the greatest danger, with 

 which rural Australia is faced to-day. 



Plant Secretions not Always Toxic. 

 The secretions of plants are not, however, necessarily always 

 toxic to other plants. The beneficial results of growing legumi- 

 nous plants with non-legumes is well known, and an experiment 

 carried out by J. G. Lipman {Journal Agricultural Science, vol. 3, 

 p. 297) shows this particularly well. Lipman grew oats in quartz- 

 sand in porous pots, which were placed in larger pots, also filled 



