The water under the Whedbee field had a very strong 
flow ; that under the field at Rocky Ford did not appear 
to have any ; it was so far from the surface, however, that 
its effect would not be that of water filling up a basin¬ 
shaped area, and immersing the roots, in which case they 
would die out and rot. 
EFFECT OF AGE UPON THE SIZE OF ROOTS. 
There is no other point on which our observations are 
so at variance with one another as they are on this point. 
While we have not seen any young plant having a root so 
large as those mentioned from Weld county, we have seen 
many roots of six-year-old plants smaller than roots of other 
plants which we knew to be only nine months old. It can 
be stated in a very general way only, that one may expect 
larger roots among older plants than in a young stand. One 
of the chief causes of this is the fact that there is a natural 
process of thinning out, and the remaining plants have more 
room to grow and perhaps can avail themselves of the re¬ 
mains of the dead plants as a fertilizer. 
DEATH RATE. 
How fast this thinning out process takes place is diffi- 
cut to answer. If there is any rule I have failed to observe 
it. In one instance I compared the casts of dead roots with 
the living ones in a piece of alfalfa five years from seeding, 
and the ratio of two to one seemed to hold good for the 
dead to the living plants. This is evidently open to ques¬ 
tion as to whether I could recognize the remains of plants 
that had been dead for several years, three or more; 
second, as to whether this ratio would hold for other 
soils as the death rate will vary under different conditions. 
The productiveness of this piece of alfalfa had not deteri¬ 
orated verv much and the variation in its tonnage may 
have been" due to other causes than the dying out of a 
portion of the plants. This loss in number of plants is 
compensated for in part or wholly by the increased size at¬ 
tained by the remaining crowns. In the case of young 
plants or those crowded on account of the thickness of the 
stand twelve or fifteen stems may arise from a single crown, 
while crowns standing alone, i. e., occupying from six to 
eight or more square feet of surface, will throw out almost 
any number of shoots. I have counted as many as one hun¬ 
dred and sixty-one, and seen others two years old which 
had thrown out many more. For this reason I do not con¬ 
sider it of much importance whether the rate of dying is 
slow or rapid within reasonable limits and provided the 
