6o The: Colorado Experiment Station. 
south and southwest aspect. Six years or more ago water was 
stored in a reservoir in the northeast corner of the field. My 
information is that this reservoir was used for about four years 
but has not been used within the past six years. The field was in 
alfalfa four years ago. It was broken up and in 1908, set to apple 
trees. The area is, I think, 20 acres, possibly more. About four 
acres of the trees died. This land was reset in the spring of 1909. 
So good as none of the new trees lived. By midsummer of 1909 
the area of dead trees had extended to twice its original size. In 
1910 there are from twelve to fifteen acres on which but few trees 
are living. 
Plate VI, lower Fig., a photograph taken Oct. 29, 1910, shows 
how large a portion of this field is wholly barren, not even Russian 
thistles or other weeds being able to grow on it. The rows that 
show in the plate are furrows between the rows of corn planted 
this season but which did not grow. That the land has been irri¬ 
gated this season and the last time, at least, with a good flow of 
water is evidenced by the washing of the soil in the bottom of the 
furrows. Aside from this one piece of evidence most observers of 
this crop and the trees would raise the question whether the land 
had not suffered from neglect at the hands of the manager and for 
the want of water. I did not attempt to determine the depth of 
the watre table in this case as there is a deep wash at the west 
side of this hill not more than a few feet from the corner of this 
field, and there is, at this place, no water coming in above the 
bed of the wash. This land is underlaid by a shale at varying 
depths in different parts of the field. The trouble in this case began 
prior to 1907, as I was informed, somewhere about the middle 
of the land shown in the foreground of the plate. I took a sample 
of the surface soil in March, 1909, and another October 29, 1910, 
from almost the same place in the field. The former was taken to 
a depth of two inches, and the latter to a depth of four inches. 
The analyses of the water-soluble portion of the two samples 
follow: 
ANALYSES 
LXXV 
LXXVI 
Water-Soluble 
Water-Soluble 
laboratory 
Laboratory 
No. 759 
No. 1026 
Percent 
Percent 
Calcic sulfate . 
. 18.986 
26.940 
Magnesic sulfate . 
. 29.771 
19.972 
Potassic sulfate . 
. 1.387 
1.109 
Sodic sulfate . 
. 39.914 
43.117 
Sodic chlorid . 
. 1.474 
1.661 
Sodic nitrate . 
. 8.173 
6.631 
Ferric and Aluminic oxid. 
0.348 
Silicic acid . 
0.222 
100.000 
100.000 
