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agricultural reform, and have afforded some indication 

 of the direction in which remedies may be sought. 



There is another large, and in Upper India very 

 pressing, question which must have the early attention 

 of the Agricultural Department. "We have already 

 described the progress and explained the inevitable 

 future results of that insidious saline efflorescence 

 known locally as '' re/^." No one can doubt that one 

 of two measures is essential — either give up all hopes of 

 making canals pay, and only allow irrigation, in locali- 

 ties where the soil is favourable to the formation of 

 this pest, once or twice in every ten or eleven years, 

 in other words, in seasons of severe drought, or lower 

 the level of your head of water, reduce your subsoil 

 water level, allow only irrigation by lift and none by 

 flow, and have recourse to subsoil drainage. 



So little is generally understood of the natural pro- 

 perties of soils that here in India, at any rate, two 

 strong objections are often raised to subsoil drain- 

 age :— 



1st. — That the soils are poor enough and light 

 enough as they are, and that to encourage the water 

 to run through them as a sieve, would in two or 

 three years ensure all " the goodness " being washed 

 out of them. 



2nd,— That where ''reh'* is concerned, all subsoil 

 drainage could do would be to draw into the soil what 

 is now on the surface, and make matters worse. 



The answer, as all agriculturists know, is complete. 

 Without trenching on debateable ground, and avoiding 

 the details of this very difficult question, it may be 



