18 The Colorado Experiment Station 
No samples were taken at this place between the two last dates 
because it was too wet on the occasion of our visits either because it 
had just been irrigated or because it had just rained, or because the 
river was in flood. 
THE SECOND PLACE CHOSEN. 
The second place chosen was strongly alkalized and in part 
seeped. These are the factors that determined this selection. Some 
of this land is still under cultivation, but some of its has been 
abandoned for several years. 
I will digress to state that many persons think that drainage 
would obviate the troubles met with in such land as this. I am sure 
that this is true, if we could drain it, but I hold it as entirely 
infeasible to drain this land, not because drains cannot be put 
through it, though this will be difficult on account of quaggy spots 
and quicksands, and cannot be done at any reasonable expense, but 
because the drains will be very difficult to keep open. The principal 
trouble, however, lies in the fact that this land will not drain. I 
have described such lands in previous bulletins and stated in one 
case that a hole made in such land held rain-water which flowed 
into it from the surface till it evaporated, and have further stated 
the necessity that I found myself under of letting a hole, sunk six 
feet in such muddy land, stand open over night in order to obtain 
a sample of water for analysis. I have also stated that I have seen 
some 7,000 feet of open trench in such land whose surface was 
muddy and yet there was not enough water in the bottom of the 
trench to form a flow. In this kind of land one may find water 
standing at the very surface and within a few feet of it find dry 
earth to a depth of from 6 to 16 feet or even more. The only way 
to drain this land would be to put a drain to every wet spot and 
I doubt whether this would be effective, even if the drain terminated 
in a well. Drainage, where feasible, is undoubtedly the corrective 
measure to be taken in our alkali questions , but drainage is not 
akvays feasible. Drainage often yields disappointing results. I 
recall having mentioned this in another bulletin and stating that I 
had opened a drain and found water enough flowing to show that 
this drain was not closed up, but that the land within a few feet of 
it was a perfect mudhole and partially covered with standing water. 
I recommend dranage for land that is wet, but I can see no use of 
with holding, what seems to me a patent fact, that it will cost more 
to effectively drain such land ,as this than the land will be worth for 
many years to come, if ever. The questions of drainage in some 
lands in Colorado are serious ones with which the alkali questions 
are intimately associated. 
