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The Ground Water. 
45 
eral passage of the solutions through the soil and probably not by 
their downward movement in the plot under discussion. If the 
conditions were changed, for example, by judicious and thorough 
drainage, then the question of alkali salts in the soil would be one 
of time and the amount of water applied to the surface. Our object 
from the beginning was not to study the effects of drainage as such, 
but the effects of cropping and cultivation where irrigation is neces¬ 
sary but drainage difficult or impossible. 
SUMMARY. 
1. The question of alkalization in Colorado resolves itself into a ques¬ 
tion of drainage. 
2. Alkalization in . this state has been made more apparent, and its 
effects increased, by over irrigation. 
3. Crops growing on alkalized soil with the water table quite near the 
surface were sensitive to drouthy conditions. 
4. The water plane is 1.83 feet higher at the west end of the plot than 
at the east end and the drainage is probably to the eastward. 
5. The inclination of the water plane to the eastward is less than that 
of the surface. 
6. The height of the water plane often changes without sensible cause, 
probably due to atmospheric conditions, pressure, temperature, etc. 
7. Light rains during dry periods produce, as a rule, comparatively 
great increases in the height of the water plane, probably due to modification of 
the capillary conditions, j 
8. Light rains during an interval of abundant moisture when the soil 
is wet do not produce an increase in the height of the water plane. 
9. Moderate 'rains were sometimes accompanied by temporay depres¬ 
sion of the water plane. This was accounted for by the rate of rain fall, char¬ 
acter of soil and the air contained therein. 
10. The effect of an irrigating ditch running past the east end 
of the plot was to raise the height of the water plane by 0.30 of a foot 
at a distance of 142 feet from the center of the ditch. This raise was apparent¬ 
ly produced by the causing of a backward pressure and not by direct infiltra¬ 
tion of water. 
11. When the water plane rose due to changes in capillary conditions 
caused by light rain falls it usually fell to its former level in about three days, 
but when it rose after an irrigation it required from 10 t<^13 days for its fall. 
12. The total solids, salts held in solution in the different well waters, 
