RELATION OF FERTILISERS TO SOIL FERTILITY. 9 



It is open to doubt whether such a thing exists as an infertile 

 soil, that is, one which will not give satisfactory results under proper treat- 

 ment. Plants, we know, can be 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 where the land 

 can be inundated by rivers. On the other hand misapplied energy may 

 convert a fruitful country into an unproductive one, and much of the desert 

 and sterile land has once been fertile, and has been brought to its present 

 condition by unthrifty husbandry. 



Travellers in Palestine tell us that its numberless hills are covered with 

 the ruins of what h?,ve once been populous cities, a certain sign that the 

 surrounding country has once been, not only fertile, but extensively 

 cultivated to provide food for the town populations. 



Sir Frederick Treves, the most recent visitor to record his impressions 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 which 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 marshes. Herodotus testifies to the remarkable fertility of 

 Babylon in his time, when it was a great commercial centre. 



Professor Heereii 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 leguminous plants with non- 

 legumes is well, known, and an experiment carried out by J. G. Lipman 

 shows this particularly well.* 



Lipman grew oats in quartz-sand in porous pots which were placed in 

 larger pots also filled with quartz-sand in which field-peas Avere grown. The 



* Journ. Afjric. Science, vol. 3, p. 207. 



