The date palm has the unusual power of resisting large amounts of alkali, the most dangerous foe to agriculture in the arid regions, both in the soil and in the irrigating water. This will permit it to be grown profitably on lands so salty as to prevent the culture of any other pay ing crop, and thereby render feasible the reclamation of hundreds of square miles of the most fertile lands in the Southwest which, at great expense, have been put under irrigation.