Excerpt from Reclamation of the Fresno Type of Black-Alkali Soil This bulletin reports the results of a series of alkali-reclamation experiments that have been made at Kearney Park, near Fresno, California. Withm a few years after irrigated agriculture was introduced into the section southwest of Fresno, the water table began to rise as a result of seepage and excessive irrigation. This caused the soluble salts that were present in the deeper subsoil layers to move upward by capillarity and finally to accumulate on or near the surface of the soil. The consequence has been that a comparatively large area of formerly alkali-free, productive soil has become severely affected with alkali. A similar condition has developed in other parts of the San Joaquin Valley. The soil conditions of these areas closely resemble those of a much larger area still further south and west of Fresno, where an excess of soluble salts has accumulated as a result of purely natural causes. An attempt was made in 1914. And to reclaim a quarter section (160 acres) of alkali soil on the Kearney Vineyard by means of tile drainage and flooding. The experiment was only partially successful. Comparatively large spots scattered here and there over the drained area remained unproductive, and in 1919 a large part of this quarter section failed to produce a profitable cr0p of barley. The soluble salts of this soil consist chiefly of the carbonate, bicarbonate, chlorid, and sulfate of sodium. Special investigations have shown that as the soluble salts accumulated in the soil, the sodium reacted with and consequently altered the chemical nature of an important component of the clay constituents of the soil. We now know that this change is more important chemically and much more difficult to overcome practically than the excess of soluble salts. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.