The doomuteea is of a light-brown colour, soon powders into fine
dust, and requires much more outlay in manure and labour than the
muteear. The oosur soil appears to be formed out of both, by a
superabundance of one or other of the salts or their bases, which are
brought to the surface from the beds below, and not carried off or
taken back into these beds. It is known that salts of ammonia are
injurious to plants, unless combined with organic acids, supplied to
the soil by decayed vegetable or animal matter. This matter is
necessary to combine with, and fix the ammonia in the soil, and give
it out to plants as they require it.
It is possible that nitrates may superabound in the soil from the
oxydizement of the nitrogen of a superfluity of ammonia. The people
say that all land may become _oosur_ from neglect; and when _oosur_
can never be made to bear crops, after it has been left long fallow,
till it has been flooded with rain-water for two or three seasons, by
means of artificial embankments, and then well watered, manured, and
ploughed. When well tilled in this way, all but the very worst kinds
of _oosur_ are said to bear tolerable crops. In the midst of a plain
of barren oosur land, which has hardly a tree, shrub, or blade of
grass, we find small _oases_, or patches of low land, in which
accumulated rain-water lies for several months every year, covered
with stout grasses of different kinds, a sure indication of ability
to bear good crops, under good tillage.
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