70 
do with the nourishment of the plants. The Weld county 
sample contains for each 1,000 pounds of hay, 5.89 pounds 
magnesia ; the Otero county sample only 3.033 pounds. The 
Weld county soil contains about one per cent, of magnesia 
and the Otero county soil only a little over 0.1 per cent., 
but in the latter case the roots penetrate the ground waters, 
which are rich in magnesia salts, as the following table illus¬ 
trates: 
COMPOSITION OF GROUND WATER. 
Calcic sulphate.155.650 
Sodic “ .341.771 
Magnesic “ 51.880 
chloride. 29.027 
carbonate. 16.026 
Insoluble .*. .. . 2.412 
596.766 
The total solids per gallon was 596.766 grains. 
Examination failed to reveal the presence of phos¬ 
phoric acid or potash, despite the large amount of the 
former in the upper portion of the soil and a fair abund¬ 
ance of the latter. The condition of the roots was good, 
although they were very different from those in Weld 
county, and also from others in Larimer county, which had 
penetrated into flowing water near the level of the Cache-a- 
la-Poudre river. These roots were neither “rotten” nor 
dead, but living, and were doubtlessly discharging their 
functions. I, of course, cannot tell to what extent their 
action had been modified ; but it is evident that, so far as 
the magnesia is concerned, they had not taken enough of it 
into the plant system to make its amount equal to that 
taken from the Weld county soil. We are in this case de 
barred from trying to explain the difference in the amount 
of magnesia appropriated by the plant by the less amount 
of lime in the Weld county soil, for the fact is, that the 
Weld county soil is very much the richer of the two in lime; 
and moreover, the amount of lime in 1,000 pounds of the 
samples is almost identical, i. e., 23.65 pounds in the Weld 
county sample and 23.69 pounds in the Otero county sam¬ 
ple ; nor yet is it probable that the potash taken up influ¬ 
enced the amount of magnesia so far as the analyses indi¬ 
cate ; the Weld county sample has 23.69 pounds and the 
Otero county sample 27.20 pounds of potash for each 1,000 
pounds of hay. There is here an excess of potash in favor 
of the Otero county sample, about equal to the deficit of 
magnesia, which fact alone would have but little signifi- 
