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Show HOW TO TREAT ALKALI S0!l! jj Evaporation of Moisture at Surfa! i Brings Injurious Salts to Level, ( roa Injuring Plant. j The Kansas' Industr'alist, publishs in by the agricultural college at Ma hattan, coutains in a recent issue brief article on how to handle alka st soils. It is pointed out in the I'm place that such crops as cane an kafir corn may be grown on lands no. ' lc too badly affected by alkali. U seems f that alkali in any soil comes from the! subsoil away down deep. Evapora-j fc Hon of the soil moisture at the sur-l i face is what brings the alkali to the) level where the main injury to plant' happens. If evaporation is prevented, those 1 strong, injurious salts will not coim to the surface and eat the tender plants. That, then, is one way to reclaim. re-claim. And it is done this prevention preven-tion of evaporation in three ways: shading, mulching and keeping the! soil at the surface well cultivated. Mulching is practiced In the case of young orchards. The young trees are protected in this way until they become be-come large enough to protect themselves them-selves with their own shade, when the mulch is needed no longer. Straw, leaves or manure may be used to make the mulch. These inr volve more trouble and expense than 1 the simple maintenance of a loose sur- 1 face soil mulch throughout the dry ' season.. As such a mulch is necessary, neces-sary, anyway, to the cultivation of ' some garden crops and hoed field f crops, it is an inexpensive method of reclamation. I Some field crops, when once established, estab-lished, will do well on a slightly alkaline al-kaline soil, provided a good stand has been obtained. This is true of alfalfa. The alfalfa seed is sensitive to "black" alkali and is very likely to be ruined by it. To prevent this, it is well to use gypsum when sowing alfalfa. This neutralizes the "black" alkali and leaves it harmless. Then, when the alfalfa has grown to a good stand it may livj for many years without a sign of injury. Then there is the "leaching-down" method of reclamation, in which the soil is kept flooded with water from three days to a week, when the alkali salts will be carried deep enough into the soil to prevent further injury for a few years at least. This method is not possible except where an abundance abun-dance of water is accessible. It is used in irrigation districts. The final and universal treatment J for alkali soils is underdrainage by tile. This treatment of a land will -remedy all the evils of alkali. Its only drawback is the first expense. Private persons use the underdrainage underdrain-age method sometimes, but generally it require co-operation or assistance from the government to make this method feasible. When once this I drainage system is built it rt.nains I good indefinitely. I |