4 
Bulletin 72. 
mand for water approaches the limit of the supply and an economic 
and intelligent use of it is forced upon the agriculturists. As an 
illustration I ma} T give the following facts which were stated to 
me—not for the purpose for which they are here used—by a person 
conversant with them: In a certain section of the State the water 
table was about 18 feet below the surface and the water was usable, 
though not good. A few years after the irrigating ditch, which 
furnished a super-abundance of water, had been built, the water 
plane had raised by 15 feet or more, with the result that the de¬ 
pressed portions of the country were being drowned out. The water, 
which had become heavily laden with the alkalies, was much less 
desirable than formerly, or wholly unfit for use. The people, as a 
matter of course, did not take it kindly when the writer insisted 
that there were two contributing causes to this state of affairs, over¬ 
irrigation and lack of drainage, and that the remedies were simple 
if feasible. The first was to apply less water, which could easily be 
done; the second, to drain the land, which could not easily be 
done. 
§ 4. The character of the underlying strata, the presence or 
absence of a hard pan, often contributes to bringing about bad 
drainage conditions, but this was not the case in the above instance, 
and I think that it is not very generally the cause in any section of 
this State. I have seen no occurrence of alkalies in this State where 
their accumulation was not due to these causes, usually to the lack 
of drainage, the alkalies accumulating in depressions with no outlet 
which serve as collecting places for the water running off of or 
draining from the higher ground, or along water courses where the 
lowness of the land and character of the vegetation prevent proper 
drainage. 
THE CONDITIONS OF THE PLOT' EXPERIMENTED ON. 
§ 5. The plot of ground chosen for our experiment was in the 
worst condition of any plot at our disposal. It was quite wet, had 
no hard pan, but a stratum of clay at a depth of about 5 feet, under¬ 
lain by gravel. It was not drained, though a tile drain had been 
laid to the west, south and east of it, but at so great a distance that 
it failed to perceptibly affect the condition of this plot. An irriga¬ 
ting ditch flows within 50 feet of the east end of the plot, and one 
perhaps 150 feet from the west end of it, both being at a higher 
level than the plot itself, which has a slope to the eastward of six 
inches in a hundred feet. The ditch passing the east end of the 
plot was, we feared, an important factor. We will subsequently 
state the results of our observations made to determine to what ex¬ 
tent this ditch influenced the water level of the plot. 
§ 6. Such were the general conditions of the ground chosen 
