RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 5Y/ 
area in drainage waters (2). This concept backed by suitable 
methods for its application may be valuable in preventing salting 
and in remedying existing salt conditions. 
Hayward, of the U. S. Salinity Laboratory at Riverside, has 
prepared a most comprehensive review for UNESCO of research 
on plant growth under saline conditions (3). In it he refers to the 
classification of saline and alkali soils, the quality of waters for 
irrigation, the physiological bases in plants for salt and alkali 
tolerance, the effects on plant growth and on seed germination, 
and then succinctly reviews the position in Australia, India and 
Pakistan, South and Central America, and North America. 
As human, animal, and plant bodies are so largely made up of 
water it is little wonder that the ability of man to live is dependent 
on having plenty of good water. Reference has been made to the 
relationship between population and food supply. The same sort 
of relationship obtains between population and water supply. It 
is little wonder then that men think of those seemingly inexhaust- 
ible supplies of water, the seas and oceans, and wish it were 
economically feasible to desalt sea water in immense quantities. 
On one occasion a sincere good wisher asked me whether it would 
be possible to construct a canal from the Mediterranean through 
the Negev desert to the Dead Sea using desalted sea water for 
irrigating the desert and raising the level of the Dead Sea waters 
with the drainage. The answer is that success in producing large 
quantities of fresh water economically from salt water is not just 
round the corner. There is no magic wand, but research is going 
on in many parts, and there is little doubt that the day will come 
when in some arid areas it will be possible to provide desalted 
water at lower cost than, for example, water transmitted over 
great distances. 
Howe, of the University of California, prepared for UNESCO 
an excellent summary of research on the utilization of saline 
water and we have heard during this series of meetings from 
Powell, a member of the Advisory Group to the U. S. Secretary 
of the Interior on the Saline Water Conversion Program (see 
p- 257.) This program was established by the U. S. Congress under 
Public Law 448, and the research projects financed by grants in 
