18 The Colorado Experiment Station 
ANALYSIS XVII. 
WATER SOLUBLE, FROM ALFALFA FIELD. Orchard No. 3. 
Per Cent. 
Calcic Sulfate ... 6.968 
Magnesic Sulfate . 6.490 
Potassic Sulfate . 2.52 6 
Sodic Sulfate . 45.16S 
Sodic Carbonate . 1.513 
Sodic Chlorid . 26.116 
Sodic Nitrate . 4.056 
Silicic Acid . 0.458 
Loss (water, organic matter, etc.) . 6.705 
100.000 
The next sample is from another orchard, Orchard No. 4. Had 
the owner not set this land to apple trees the probabilities are that 
no notice would have been taken of the fact that there was some¬ 
thing wrong with the soil. The care bestowed on a young orchard 
is greater perhaps than that bestowed on ordinary crops. This ac¬ 
counts for the fact that we find these troubles so frequently in 
apple orchards; it is not that they do not exist elsewhere, for they 
do. This young orchard contained, it may be, 20 acres, sloping to 
the south and west. The land is quite high. Some years ago there 
was a reservoir in the northeast corner of this piece of ground but 
it had been abandoned for several years, at least four, before the 
orchard was set. The soil is a clayey loam, but varies somewhat 
in different parts of the tract. A shale underlies the whole or the 
greater portion of it at no considerable depth. There is a little draw 
running southwest and south through the orchard. It begins near 
the north side and somewhat east of the middle line and extends 
almost to the southwest corner of the orchard. The area involved 
in the spring of 1909 was about four acres. By autumn it had in¬ 
creased to nearly double or about eight acres. The land had pre¬ 
viously been in alfalfa which, according to my infromant, had 
ceased to do well in this portion of the field. Up to this time 
only preliminary work has been done on this particular orchard 
and it is given for the reason that it presents entirely different con¬ 
ditions from any presented so far. In March, 1908, I found the 
surface soil a mealy mass. The conditions at the time did not af¬ 
ford opportunity for me to judge of the color of the soil. There 
was no incrustation; a scuff with the foot would reveal the fact that 
the dirt which seemed to be ordinary soil was a mixture of soil 
and crystals of some sort, for they glistened strongly in the light, 
and clear sunshine was not necessary. I took a sample to a depth of 
two inches. The water soluble was 8.23 per cent of the air dried 
mass. 
