36 The Colorado Experiment Station 
suits as the brown areas were distinct to the eye. I have no doubt 
that I could have collected samples, taken to a depth of three inches, 
in any one of these six sections, which would have shown either 
very low or very high results, and if I had sampled the acre of land 
in the direction at right angles to that in which I did sample it, I 
could have shown that the whole acre of land was exceedingly uni¬ 
form in its content of nitric nitrogen, and all very rich or moder¬ 
ately poor, according to what state of things I wished to prove. We 
will illustrate this in later paragraphs. We content ourselves, for 
the present, with showing that the distribution of the nitric nitrogen 
in the surface-soil is exceedingly irregular and is independent of the 
distribution of the alkali, and with the observation that portions of 
this land which were very bad in 1911 were by no means bad in 
1912. 
In regard to the vertical distribution of the nitrates, the samples 
taken in December, 1911, a few weeks, six to eight weeks, after 
the fall irrigation, indicate, in the main, that the nitrates had been 
washed down into the soil and the ground-water. 
This land is not drained. It has never been considered wet 
enough to require draining. An important question in this connec¬ 
tion, is that regarding the lateral movement of the ground-water, if 
there be any. I think that any lateral movement that there may be 
is comparatively slow. This, however, is merely an opinion at 
which I have arrived from observation and is not proven by direct 
experiment. I do not think that I have at any time found the water- 
plane, even in the lowest-lying hole that we dug, less than four feet, 
six inches below the surface. In a hole dug at another point I 
found water near the surface, but at this particular point the trees 
were still in good condition. It is just to state in this connection 
that I thought, at the time that the water-plane in this instance 
was temporarily higher than usual. Be that as it may, the water 
was high and the trees were well grown and healthy. I am strongly 
of the opinion that the ground-water found in any given hole in this 
land, belongs, for the most part, just where we find it. That there 
may be some lateral movement is possible, but I think that this is 
very small, if it exists at all. 
We find that in holes 2, 4 and 5, opened in December, 1911, 
that the nitrates increase with depth till we reach the water-plane, 
but that the amounts, compared with some of our results, are not 
very remarkable, the maximum being 80 p. p. m. I believe that this 
is due to the fact that the nitrates were washed from the surface 
into the soil, and had these localities had a little more water applied, 
we would have found the surface and succeeding portions still 
poorer, but possibly in the same order that we now find them. In 
