PAKT 4.] Center; Note onRch or Alhali Soils and Saline Well waters. 
271 
By ai'boi'icultiire. 
are made,—not isolated ones by a GoYernment, but everywhere generally by the 
people themselves—and anything that is successful is hailed as a discovery. 
Some of the methods I have described as used in America may not always be 
practicable in the plains of India. To run off the saline water requires a slope 
and lines of natural drainage that may not be available. It might be possible to 
run off the salt-impregnated water into absorption wells, thus returning the salt 
to its natural destination, the undei’gronnd water. It is a law that a well will 
absorb as much water without raising its level as it would give out without sen- 
.sibly lowering it. This means has been used in some 
cases to get rid of liquid sewage, but was found to poison 
the w'ells. The jdantation of trees is also proved to be a very efficient means of 
cure. The kikar is well known as capable of flourishing in such soils. They 
not only assist in moderating excessive evaporation liy shade, but they also ab¬ 
sorb and remove a certain amount of salt from the soil. As the alkali exists 
chiefly in the surface soil and in much less amount at a small depth, trees may 
grow readily where annual crops could not. The latter have their rootlets only 
in the surface soil, and are poisoned by the excess of salt; while the roots of trees 
extend deeper into less saline ground ; also plants not only consume a portion 
of the salt, but they prevent its concentration on the surface. A most conclusive 
experiment made near the Western Jumna Canal by the Irrigation Department 
is reported by Colonel Fulton. A piece of utterly useless reh land, for which 
revenue was remitted, was taken up by the Department and planted with kikar 
trees. These flourished and a veiy fine cro 2 J of doab grass, 2 feet high, came 
annually up under the trees, and the efflorescence disappeared. The villagers, 
seeing that the land was imiu-oved and fearing it would be alienated by the new 
settlement, apjdied for the restoration of both trees and land, and carried their 
point in the courts of law. A few days after the restoration the wood was sold 
to a wood merchant and every tree cut down. At present the doab grass is all 
gone, and the soil is encrusted with salt. Such an experiment made among 
American farmers would have excited the keenest interest and given rise to 
numerous trials of the same. 
32. The method of cure by nitrate of lime as a manure, suggestad by 
Dr. Brown, would act in two ways. It would partly 
Chemical manure. serve as a manure favouring vegetation, and in addition 
it would act on the alkaline and magnesian sulphate by double decomposition, 
producing nitrate of alkali and sulphate of lime, wffiich last is a slightly soluble 
salt which is not hurtful to vegetation and would not form an efflorescence. 
Carbonate of soda would be .similarly neutralised, but the sodium chloride would 
remain unaltered. The natives are well acquainted with this use of nitrous 
efflorescence, which can be distinguished from the sulphate of soda by its moist¬ 
ness due to deliquescence and by the brown colour and by not efflorescing in fine 
pow'der. It consists mainly of common salt and nitrates of lime and soda. 
This production of nitrate is due to the decomposition of nitrogenous animal or 
vegetable matter, first producing ammonia, which is afterwards oxidi.sed to nitric 
acid. An essential condition of the nitrification process is the pro.sonce of 
alkaline carbonate, or carbonate of lime, to fix the nitric acid. For example, 
