BARREN SOILS. A term signifying such soils as are normally unprofitable. The term can only be correctly applied in very few cases; as almost any soil may be rendered capable of affording a basis for some kind of vegetable life, arboreal or other. The question of planting up the enormous quantity of what is now waste land, might well engage the most practical consideration. Of course, the natural state of any land will, to a great extent, determine what would be its ultimate condition, after all that could be effected by mechanical agency has been accomplished. Drainage, irrigation, enrichment, pulverisation, are all matters which can only be considered upon a particular basis; but we doubt not that the thousands of acres of land now practically almost useless, might, by the adoption of proper means, be rendered fairly remunerative.