24 
Colorado Experiment Station 
water from a new well that he had just dug might have killed them. 
On learning how the animals had acted, I suspected that nitrates in 
the water might have been the cause of their dying. The owner had 
brought in some of the water and it responded strongly to a test for 
the presence of nitrates just as he had taken it from the well. This 
man said: “I have to drive my cattle several miles to water and I want 
a home supply”, and asked what I thought about driving a well. I 
had tested deep-well waters from this section and knew that they 
were unfit for any household use unless one were absolutely forced to 
use them, but I did not think that they would kill cattle. He put down 
a well 280 feet and obtained water. It was just such water as I had 
received from other wells and his cattle got along all right, but it 
physicked the men who drank it. Later he came to see me again and 
as the locality was a new one for the occurrence of these nitrates, I 
went to see the place. Mv assistant who went with me remarked be¬ 
fore we got within three-quarters of a mile of the place that the whole 
countrv looked to him like an area in which we should find nitrates 
• ' . # # | 
m great abundance. Anyone could recognize the characteristics. We 
found the well which had killed his cattle. It was in the middle of his 
corral and_so shallow that I would not do any work on such water. 
We returned on another occasion prepared to obtain a sample of water 
to represent this well. We did not get it out of the corral 
nor very near to it. The water in the old well in the corral had risen 
to within 3 feet or so of the surface. We dug a hole in the edge of 
a beet field, perhaps 250 yards south of this well, and the water came 
into this hole at a point about 3 feet from' the surface. Below this there 
was but little or no water to the depth that we dug, about 5 feet. We 
waited till about 10 gallons of water had run in, which required about 
an hour. The well that he drilled was just outside of his corral and 
was 280 feet deep, most of the way in shales. This well is cased. We 
took a sample of this water, for here we had as fair conditions as we 
could possibly get to show us whether these nitrates might come up 
from the shales below. The results were that the water from the 5- 
foot hole contained some 3,000 parts of nitrates and 6,900 parts of 
other salts to a million parts of the water, while the water that came 
from the shales 280 feet front the surface contained no nitrates. 
though it carried 5,328 parts of other salts for each million of watei. 
The surface soil at this place, taken to a depth of 4 inches, contained 
y.d 6 percent water-soluble salts of which 54.5 percent, or more 
than half, were nitrates. This mrans that a .o pe r cent of this surface 
soil was nitrates, or 40,000 pounds per acre in the top three inches of 
this area where I took the sample. This condition was scattered ovr 
at least a square mile. Other portions of it were quite as bad as this, 
so this does not represent just a little, sought-out spot to give us a high 
