22 
Colorado Experiment Station 
We find two very striking things in regard to the nitrogen in these 
areas. The first is that there is much morel of it than in the land just 
outside of the area; the second one is that a very large percentage of 
it is in the form of nitrates. Further, it sometimes happens that the 
difference between the total nitrogen and that present in the nitrates 
is bigger than the amount found in the soil just outside of the area. 
I have examined vertical sections of such areas and have found but 
one instance in which the second or third foot of soil contained more 
nitrates than the first foot; in all other cases the top foot contained 
much more nitrate than any succeeding foot. The top 3 inches of the 
soil contains much more nitrogen and also much more as nitrates than 
the succeeding portions. The top 3 inches usually contains more than 
the succeeding 2 feet and sometimes more than the succeeding 5 feet. 
This is especially apt to be the case if there is much nitric nitrogen in 
the surface sample. 
We thought that the nitrates might come from the waters below 
the surface and in this way come from some other place, but we could 
not prove this. On the contrary, we found a piece of land on which 
nitrates were so abundant in spots that the owner failed to get any¬ 
thing to grow on them. This piece of land lay between some seeped 
land which was badly alkalied, and the river. The water that flowed 
from this seeped land to the river had to flow under this nitrate land. 
I examined four different samples of this water, three taken from the 
seeped ground and one from an under-drain at the north edge of the 
land in question, i. e., farthest from the river. Three of these waters 
contained no nitrates and the other contained only one-tenth part per 
million. The alkalis on this bad land also contained no nitrates, con¬ 
sequently the nitrates found in the lower land along the river could 
not have come from this source, for they were not present in either 
the alkalis, the soil or the water which flowed from under it. A 
further fact in this case was that the owner had previously tried to 
wash this soil in order to get things to grow, but it did no permanent 
good. As all nitrates are very easily soluble in water, and are per¬ 
haps the very easiest to wash out of the soil, it was remarkable how 
they persisted in these spots. Their ready solubility in water should 
prevent their accumulating in any spot and especially on the surface, 
if there were water enough to wash them down, and if they were in 
the rocks, the water coming out of these rocks ought to hold them in 
solution. Of course, if there be nitrates in the soil or in the rock 
through which the water runs, we will find them in the water. For 
this reason we do find them present in some waters which flow over 
the surface of some of our lands or run down through the soil of some 
of our mesas and seep out along their edges. But the water that comes 
from the rocks themselves does not contain nitrates. The following 
