CHAPTER III. 



PRELIMINARY WORKS- 



The area to be operated upon may not be in a fit condition to 

 be immediately sown or planted up, and some preliminary work 

 may, therefore, be called for to render it suitable for the purpose* 

 The soil may be either (1) swampy or too wet, or (2) entirely 

 wanting in cohesion, or (3) situated on a slope and hable to shp 

 or be eroded, or (4) too dry to give any hope of rapid success, or 

 even of success at all without irrigation^ 



SECTION I. 

 Treatment of swampy or water-logged land. 



Even species that are naturally found in swampy situations grow 

 all the better for some slight correction of an. excess of water;. 

 "Without a certain amount of ro(rf,-aeration the absorbing organs 

 of plants cannot form the organic acids wherewith to dissolve, and! 

 thereby utilise, the large proportion of essential, but not immedi- 

 atfily soluble, matters present in the- soil ;- aaid withoiri; sufficient 

 oxygenation the decomposing organic substances in the soil would 

 yield an injurious quantity of humic and other acids hurtful to 

 plani^growth. It is evident that sulScient sub-surface aeration 

 must prove especially fatal to young seedlings, with their extreme- 

 ly delicate, tender and herbaceous constitution, their very limited 

 root^apparatus, their smill size, their restricted transpfrihg surfe,ce 

 so utterly disproportionate to their functional activity, and their 

 slight recuperative power^ Ia,stly, water-logged soils, being very 

 cold, reduce still further the already diminished activity of the 

 roots. Hence, as already explained in Part I, the significant 

 scarcity of natural reproduction on water-logged or constantly 

 flooded land. The few seedlings that do ultimately stirvive ar© 

 imable to extend their roots into the- deeper layers of the soil, and 

 hence suffer both in their growth and health and their stabihty^ 



