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To accomplish this result various methods are resorted to. Beets grown upon the soil seem to dissipate the alkali. Barnyard manure, when it can be obtained, improves the condition very much. Sometimes simple cultivation without an attempt to grow any crop is practiced with very favorable results. If irrigation can be applied the chlorides are soon carried away, or below the surface, and where only chlorides are present the spot is rapidly brought to a state of cultivation. Unfortunately this cannot be generally done since the supply of water is not even sufficient for the crops. Frequently sorghum is grown, which is a profitable money crop, and valuable for reclaiming the soil. Gypsum has not, so far as I could learn, been used. But in many instances its use would probably be attended with the most satisfactory results, while in other cases it would probably be of little benefit. In all cases the alkali should be subjected to chemical analysis, and then intelligent methods could be directed for reclaiming the soil.

In the ditches used for irrigating there accumulate considerable quantities of mud and other matter, which is carried by the river water in suspension and in solution. This deposit, when it becomes dry in the bottom of the ditches, cracks, curls and breaks into pieces of various sizes. From time to time it is removed and thrown upon either side of the ditch, the banks of which are gradually built up. Below are given the analyses of two samples of this deposit. There is considerable difference in the composition of these sediments, owing to the difficulty of collecting the deposits in a state of purity, and even more due to the nature of the soil underlying the ditch. The frequent alternations of flooding and evaporation of water from the bottom of the ditch will ultimately accumulate at the surface all the alkali which exists in the soil to a considerable depth. Hence in collecting a sample of the sediment, should it happen to be from a place where the ditch passes over an alkali spot, the quantity of alkali shown by analysis is likely to be much greater than would appear in the analysis of a sediment gathered from any other place.

Large quantities of gypsum have just been found west of the Quitman Mountains, which is directly in the line of the railroad, and within a few miles of this valley, being, in fact, in the line of hills which forms its southern boundary. E. T. D.