Show PROGRESS IS THE RULE It Is now conceded that the under draInage and leaching oC alkali lands may be of great benefit to people where that process la unknown That is whai we have shown and it is encouraging en-couraging to find l the admission The further admission that surface watering water-ing will not effect this leaching will next be In order for that Is the fact in spite of illinformed contention to Ihe contrary The trouble with that sort of effort Is that such an infinitesimal l infinitesi-mal portion ol the alkali is washed off that its place is easily made good and more by the new supply of alkali which constantly rises from below This supply of alkali is of great depth and its supply seems Inexhaustible But the tile drainage supplies a base beyond which It cannot rise and there remains constantly the four feet or so of alkalifreed land above which can lever be impregnated again The claim that the land can be freed I from alknli by ordinary surface waier ing must necessarily be wholly disregarded disre-garded In the light of experience for there is no showing that it has ever been successful and success In this is the thing desired The effort to fight off ogress to nblst that the old ways can never be improved upon and that nothing new or worth while can be suggested that thc scientific men In the employ of the U S Department of Agriculture dont know what they are talking about and that what they propose isnt new at all is merely the vaporing of windy braggadocio by one who wholly misses the meaning and purport of the things done Those men cannot afford to be fossils or Idle l boasters they are men of education trained In the special work hey do and the one who tries to make the people believe that their work Is folly and that it possesses nothing new or worth their attention is doing an exceedingly III service to those he en leavors to Persuade to their dftadvan age The idea that there is nothing new In agriculture or the treatment of soils crops and culture must he given up as folly and the notion that all that could be advantageous was known fifty years ago as a bad dream |