356 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
condition (unbequem),” and argues that these effects are in some 
part due to the presence of common salt. From the context, how- 
ever, it would appear that, unlike Hilgard (see above, p. 345), he 
found no special difficulty in tilling this soil, —7. e. making a seed- 
bed whose mechanical condition seemed to be favorable for the 
growth of plants. There is naturally no need to say here that the 
presence of an undue proportion of chloride of sodium or other sol- 
uble saline matter in the soil will hinder seeds from germinating 
and prevent many kinds of plants from growing. Reinders found 
by experiments when sea-water was made to flow gently upward 
into loose, moist loam that the earth settled or shrunk upon itself 
to a marked degree, and that the shrinkage was appreciably in- 
creased when the wet earth was stirred. Clayey soils shrunk more 
and faster when shaken up with sea-water than when shaken with 
distilled water, but the effect was much less marked with sandy 
loams. He observes that practical men have remarked upon the 
facts that where stubble-fields have been overflowed by the sea the 
stubble seems as if it had been lifted upward, and that ploughed 
land looks as if it had been subjected to pressure. 
Reinders found furthermore that the water-holding power of 
loams that had been soaked with sea-water was perceptibly dimin- 
ished. In three cases out of four more water was retained in the 
pores of the natural loams than could be held by them immediately 
after they had been drenched with sea-water. Yet it is a matter 
of practical experience in Holland that soils which have been over- 
flowed by sea-water tend to remain moist for a long time. In at- 
testing this fact Reinders seeks to explain it by assuming the pres- 
ence of hygroscopic salts ; viz. chloride of calcium and chloride of 
magnesium.* He remarks, however, incidentally, that the struc- 
ture of the earth examined by him in this particular experiment 
underwent changes and became cloddy (broecklich) and harsh ; 
and in another paragraph, when describing land that has been over- 
flowed, he says: ‘* The soil silts together and remains moist for 
* As had been done before by Peters in ‘‘ Stoeeckhardt’s Chemische Ackers- 
mann,” 1861, 7%. 29, and again in his report on Grouven’s experiments in the 
‘*‘ Jahresberichte der Agrikultur-Chemie,” 1865, 8. 289, 290. It is to be re- 
marked that in all these instances the soil was kept moist in some way as a 
result of the application of chloride of potassium or of sodium. So it was in 
the cases noticed by Fleck (‘‘ Hoffmann’s Jahresbericht,” 1859-1860, 2. 256), 
who attributed the observed dampness of his potato-fields that had been dressed 
with Stassfurt minerals to absorption of moisture by the saline constituents of 
the fertilizer. ' 
