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.  If, however, you have hardpan at different depths on the tract, so that it may really make basins which will hold water, you are likely to have trouble from accumulations of water which will not only prevent the roots extending to the full depths of the soil, but will also cause some trees to die.  Such a danger could be removed by draining the soil to a depth of three and a half or four feet with tile, in order to prevent accumulations at any point.  This would be expensive perhaps, but you would be sure that you had rendered your four feet of soil safe and available.  If you trust to blasting you will have to wait several years for the trees to tell you whether you helped them or not.

Effects of Blasting.

I have land which is underlaid with hardpan two or three feet deep and this in turn is underlaid with sand or sandpan.  What I would like to know is whether blasting the holes before setting trees would allow more moisture coming from this sandpan, or, rather, what effect it would have as to moisture.

We do not know.  It might make the soil better for the trees by allowing escape for surplus water through previous layers.  It might allow the tree to root more deeply for moisture in those strata.  It might allow water to rise from such strata if they have water under pressure.  It might do other things good or bad, according to conditions prevailing under the hardpan.  If you are to irrigate the land the effects would probably be good.

The Sub-soil Plow.

I am contemplating using a sub-soil plow for the purpose of breaking plow-sole on grain land.  This is about 4 1/2 inches below the surface and is about 5 inches thick.  This soil is comparatively loose and seems to be of good quality.  Do you think that the sub-soil plow run low enough to break this plow-sole will benefit the land?