Elmer Drew Merrill

“ This corresponds to about 0.33 per cent. of sodium chloride, which is a high percentage for a soil, and is quite sufficient to account for the large proportion of soda and chlorine in the Mallee root-water.
Not all samples of sap obtained in the manner of the Mallee root-water are so dilute; Smith, for instance, [4] found enormously greater amounts of both mineral and organic solids in the sap from the timber of Grevillea robusta, while the juices of such plants as the sugar-cane and sugar-maple, carry large percentages of sugar, though not of mineral constituents ”

“ Such a case is furnished in my own experience by the growth of sugar-cane on soil infiltrated with brackish water, on certain parts of the Clarence River, New South Wales, and on what is known as Tiri land in Fiji—low-lying land subject to inundation with sea-water. In such cases, quite excessive amounts of chlorides are found in the juice when the cane is crushed. ”