Rocky Ford enterprise., 1909-02-12
Farmers Short Course.
THIRD DAY.

Prof. House opened the day with
a lecture on Alka1i and Drainage,
which proved very instructive as
asking himself three questions and
then answered them. "What is aka
Ii? How does it come to the sur
face OF the ground? and How do
you get rid of it? First, alkali is In
all soil, it comes from decayed vep-
citation, there are two kinds, the
white alkali and the black, of which
the black is the worst. Here in Col
as bad off as we sometimes think;
the white alkali is made up of the sui
phate OF sulphur and sodium princi-
pally with some magnesium and
chloride. The black is made TIP of
the carbonate of sodium and COM
pounds of sulphur and chloride; the
one important thing to remember is
that one is made of the sulpha:e OF
these elements and the other of the
carbonate of them. Next we have
the question How does it come to the
surface? Under the ground there is
to be found water at some depth or
other and the surface of this water
is called the water table. When il
rains or we irrigate there is water on
the surface OF the soil and in short
time it is all gone. the gravitation
pulls It down and tends to bring the
table higher. and the higher this ta-
bic or the closer to the surface OF
the ground it is, then that much fast
er will the water rise to the surface
when the atmosphere is dry. Water
will dissolve almost anything there
&c ftaN kA sS lie
solve alkali and therefore as it rises
to the surface it gathers alkali and
when it evaporates and leaves all its
impurities behind there We have the
alkali on the surface. Now the next
question. When water reaches a bed
Of gravel either going down or COM
ing up it will run away among the
gravel stones as fast as it can be
brought there; this we call natural
drainage. Alkali and wet soil are det-
rimental to vegetation and you should
keep the soil under cultivation and
we'll broke up to keep the alkali
down. When too much alkali col
lects on the surface of the ground It
is a good idea to leech or food the
ground and wash off all this; you
can't keep the alkali down, it is
bound to rise with the water. Now
to keep the water from rising so rap.
idly it will be necessary to keep the
water table down from the surface.
Now comes the question, how are we
to do this? Take your spade and dig
trenches through. the land and the
Nwater finding an open passage way
will follow it off and not rise to the
or they may be enclosed with tile
boxes or even brush or straw. but
however it will be an open passage.
In using tile they need not be solid
but you may have a square wooden
box with no bottom; it is advisable
to use two inch lumber in the con-
struction of this. Now you say wood
will rot. My friends. wood Is better
than any iron or steel YOU may put
down there, for If wood is dry it will
last you indefinitely and so when It
is wet the same but the alternate OF
being wet and then dry is what causes
the wood to rot. When installing
drainage system it is always advisa-
Bile to engage a competent engineer
to do the work for you. You will
say I can set stakes and dig my own
trenches and save the expense of hir-
ing an engineer, and you 60 ahead
and when you come to a place where
tnc QitCn mas 10 De QuR uttlS ueGp-
er to be on the slope with fhe rest
of your ditch and you get down prct-
ty we'll to where you ought to be
and saw oh, what is the use Of going
any deeper. it won't matter If it isu't
on a straight slope. the water will
run just the same. So YOU go on and
when you are through and get the
trench closed the water runs along
fine and you think we'll that engineer
ing is a scheming proposition and
I'm glad I didn't hire one. After a.
while the water don't run as nice as
it did at first and you wonder why.
Well. my friend. the places you have
left a little high and thought would
be all right have formed kind oi
basin between them and the mud and
sediment that is carried in the wat
er is deposited in these low places
and it isn't long until the. trench is
filed up and your water can't get
through. and you have a nice job Of
opening I'd the trench and cleaning it
out, where If you had had the slope
in a straight fall in the first place
all this trouble would not have come
about. II when you are thing and
you have Put tile through your laad
once and 4 dosss's seem to'do Rses