hardpan is thick and hard, and if there is no immediate prospect of subirrigation, it is better to use such land for some other purpose than for raisin-vines, which will only pay properly if grown under the most favorable circumstances, and on the best and deepest soils. As to the nature of the hardpan, a few remarks may prove of interest. The hardpan can best be compared to a stalactite formation similar to those found in various caves. It has been formed very much in the same way as they were. In caves the rainwater, that seeps down from the top surface, dissolves various substances, especially carbonates (and silicates even) which again are deposited on the underside of the cave roof. This precipitation of hard material is caused both by evaporation of the water, as well as by attraction and adhesion. Such redeposition of dissolved minerals is seen for instance if solutions of salt in water are passed through tasteless and clean sand. The water will come through sweet and tasteless, the salt having adhered to the surface of the sand grains. Similarly, if a hole is dug near the seashore in the sand, the salt water will seep through, and form a well of more or less tasteless drinking water. In the formation of hardpan, this is exactly what has taken place. The rainwater has dissolved certain elements, such as carbonates of lime, or carbonates of sodium and various other salts, and in its way through the lower strata of the soil these dissolved elements have again been taken up by the sand and cemented it together. Thus it is explained why hardpan upon examination is so often found to resemble sand or sandstone: the lower sandy strata of the soil have been especially effective in causing the lime in the water to adhere to the numerous surfaces of every individual grain of sand. In hog-wallow districts the hardpan is found principally between the individual hog-wallows, but rarely in or under them. The rainwater has here carried the minerals in the soil to the deeper places between the hog-wallows, in which it has accumulated to a greater extent than anywhere else, and thus formed a heavier hardpan. In flooding the hog-wallows, the top of every hog-wallow is seen to settle and fall in, there being no hardpan below it, if the sides of the hog-wallow are steep. Where the hardpan consists principally of lime compounds, its chemical composition is not detrimental to the vines. But where the hardpan is cemented by alkalies more or less soluble in water, these deleterious substances will dissolve and rise to the surface to the great detriment or even to the total destruction of the vineyard.