CIRCULAR No. 4. S. 28. 



United States Department of Agriculture, 



. DIVISION OF SOILS. 

 Cooperating with the Utah Experiment Station. 



THE SOILS OF SALT LAKE VALLEY, UTAH. 



OBJECT OF RECENT SURVEY. 



In July, 1899, the Division of Soils, in cooperation with the Utah 

 Agricultural Experiment Station, undertook a survey of that portion 

 of Salt Lake County lying immediately west of the Jordan River and 

 extending to the Great Salt Lake and the Oquirrh Mountains on the 

 west, the object being to map the soils with particular reference to 

 the extent of, and damage from, alkali and seepage waters. 



EARLY IRRIGATION WORK. 



Irrigation began here a half century ago and, for the most part, 

 has been confined to that portion of the area nearest the river Jordan 

 and south of the Twelfth street road. This irrigated portion con- 

 sists of a number of benches, one above another, extending in a gen- 

 eral direction parallel with the river and comprising an area about 

 two miles wide and sixteen miles long, extending south from the 

 Twelfth street road and bordering on the river together with an- 

 other portion not quite so wide, which turns westward following 

 the contour of the foothills and extending nearly to the point of the 

 Oquirrh Mountains. The land slopes toward the river, or to the 

 north, at the rate of fifty to one hundred feet per mile. 



The earliest irrigation was successfully practiced on the Jordan 

 meadows or bottom land, but later, when canals were constructed 

 and irrigation began on the benches, the bottom land became so wet 

 that the greater part of it has been abandoned and now lies as pas- 

 ture or waste land. 



RECENT IRRIGATION IMPROVEMENTS. 



The latest, largest, and uppermost of the canals running over these 

 bench lands is the Utah and Salt Lake, which is about two hundred 

 feet above the level of most of the river bottoms and the low lands 

 to the north. At its furthermost extremity this canal is about eleven 

 miles west of the river. In the last six or seven miles of its course 

 it passes over soil that is underlaid quite close to the surface by 

 gravel, which is in turn underlaid at a considerable depth by an im- 

 pervious layer of clay. The clay outcrops from one to two miles 



