This test, however, gives you
only a rough idea whether the soil is suitable for growing plants. You
can tell that better by the appearance of the plants which you find. Any
druggist can furnish the litmus paper, and give you a demonstration of
how it acts on contact with alkali.
Using Gypsum for Alkali.
Is it better, to kill the black alkali in the soil with gypsum, just to
scatter it over an alkalied spot or to plow the soil first and then use
the gypsum? I am going to sow alfalfa.
Use the gypsum after plowing, for it will wet down more quickly, and the
gypsum has to be dissolved to act freely. The best way to cure your spot
is to run an underdrain into it, if possible, so the rain-water can run
through the soil freely and take the alkali with it.
Blasting or Tiling.
In planting trees where hardpan is four feet from the surface is it
necessary to blast the hardpan, or is there no benefit derived by the
blasting?
If there should be a good available soil under a shallow layer of
hardpan, which you say is four feet from the surface, it might be of
considerable advantage to bore into the hardpan and explode a dynamite
cartridge in it. But if your good soil is really only four feet deep and
hardpan continuous below, the blast might cause fissures which would
prevent standing water in the upper stratum. If you are sure of four
feet of good soil above the hardpan you will have no difficulty in
growing good trees, if you get the moisture just right and the hardpan
slopes in such a way that surplus moisture will move away.
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