Alkalis In Colorado 
31 
and 16.5 percent. Subsequent inquiry regarding the production and 
quality of beets grown on other portions of this piece of land showed 
that they were even better than those grown on the part where I took 
the samples that I have mentioned. The water used to irrigate this 
land was seepage and carried 10,930 pounds of solid matter in solu¬ 
tion in an acre-foot. The statement of the man who was renting this 
place was that he could raise all manner of garden truck in abundance. 
Another instance is that of a truck garden owned by an Italian. 
This garden was located at the base of the first bench back from the 
river. The north end of the piece of land was covered with water and 
was not more than 3 feet lower than the highest portion of the land. 
The portion of this land which was not cultivated was used as a cow 
pasture and I have seen crystals of sodic sulfate in the cow-tracks 
inches long by i inch wide. The Italian manured the ground heavily 
and cultivated all kinds of truck successfully. He and his numerous 
family were well clothed and evidently well fed and the living was made 
off this 5-acre garden tract. I dug a hole in a part of this garden plant¬ 
ed to carrots and found the ground-water at a depth of 22 inches. The 
surface was exceedingly rich in alkali, so rich that every bit of straw 
or dead weed that stuck up out of the ground became covered with a 
mass of sulfate of soda crystals. The ground-water carried 484 grains 
to the imperial gallon, or 14,300 pounds of salts in the acre-foot of 
water. The analysis of this water residue showed 23.3 percent of 
calcic sulfate, 27.2 percent of magnesic sulfate, 27.0 percent of sodic 
sulfate, 4.7 percent sodic carbonate and 11.2 percent of sodic chlorid. 
The alkali gathered from the surface of the wet land carried 94.0 per¬ 
cent of sodic sulfate. 
Such observations, combined with my own experience in growing 
sugar beets on land the top 4 inches of which carried 3.16 percent of 
water-soluble, one-half of which was made up of magnesic and sodic 
sulfate with only small amounts of sodic chlorid and carbonate, leads 
me to the conclusion that the ordinary “white alkali’’ as it occurs in our 
Colorado soils, does not do us much if any damage. If the few ex¬ 
amples cited were the only instance of successful cultivation of strongly 
alkalied soils that I have seen, I would not feel willing to unhesitatingly 
make the assertion that I have just made. This fact, however, can be 
observed in large sections where the alkali, is everywhere very abund¬ 
ant, and in many places, we would judge, in excessive quantities. 
I can see no object in giving a number of analyses all showing 
the same thing, i.e., that our “white alkalis”, especially the effloresced 
masses which whiten the sulface of the land by the square mile in some 
sections of the state, are made up essentially of the sulfates of soda, 
magnesia, and lime mixed with some sodic carbonate and some sodic 
chlorid. In a few cases it is practically all sodic sulfate, in a few others 
