cruickshank's practical planter. 327 



isted a considerable depth of vegetable mould cover- 

 ing, where now little is left but pure sand, baked 

 clay, bare rock, and saline encrustations. From the 

 footing which an industrious and brave nation has 

 recently so honourably acquired in this territory, may 

 we not hope that the tide of arid sterility, dissipat- 

 ing the vegetable covering, will be tmiied, and that 

 through Em*opean enterprize and mechanical science, 

 by means of steam and wind power, a system of irri* 

 gation will be introduced which will reanimate this 

 dead portion of the earth — spreading forth again 

 perpetual spring, stremng the desert all over with 

 herbs, and fruits, and flowers, converting the sirocco 

 into a breeze loaded with fragrance, and reproducing, 

 in profusion, all the delights of the gardens of Hes- 

 perus ? From the carbonaceous or soil-matter being 

 burned out, and from the quantity of saline deposit, 

 a very considerable time will, however, elapse before 

 production be generally extended, and the desert so 

 far circumscribed, and the ground cooled so much, as 

 to condense a sufficiency of rain and dew, that a new 

 vegetable mould cover may be formed. 



But to return from om- wide excursion, we observe, 

 that Mr Cruickshank states, page 25, " that any 

 land that is proper for Scots fir will be found to an- 

 swer well with the larch." This observation, with 



