122 L. COHEN. 



There is undoubted evidence that in ordinary soil of 

 medium fertility, the use of soluble fertilisers is without 

 profit, in fact in certain cases positively detrimental, unless 

 a correspondingly large amount of water is used on the 

 growing crop, so as to bring the soil moisture below the 

 maximum limit of concentration during its growth. This 

 is an aspect of the subject of manuring to which too much 

 attention cannot be paid, more especially in the matter of 

 irrigation with saline waters and the correction of their 

 alkalinity, it being borne in mind that we cannot add to 

 the water without increasing the quantity of salts in the 

 soil moisture. 



In the foregoing brief discussion of the subject I am 

 sensible of not having introduced any matter entirely new, 

 but have merely endeavoured to apply a few observations 

 made by experimenters in other directions, to the question 

 under consideration, one which has provided a good deal 

 of food for thought, and the importance of which in experi- 

 mental agriculture can hardly be over-rated. 



