138 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, X. Y. 



is often quite sandy. In sncli places, one has the opportunity of 

 stiidyinar the differences between the two kinds of clay soil, one 

 of which is characteristic of the hillsides. The lake clays are 

 found to be in layers, as if deposited in water, and the clay is 

 usually less dense than the boulder clay, w^iile pebbles are relatively 

 scarce. 



Shale gravel. — Between the lake shore and the true gravel ridge?, 

 in some places there are low ridges of shale, on which the soil is so 

 thin that deep plowing reaches the friable shale bed rock. The 

 soil is then made up of a mixture of fragments of shale and clay, 

 forming wliat is known as shale gravel. These deposits are not 



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•wi«^^>-v;;-i^ 



58.— Modern beach at Barcelona, showing the crest in the background. 



very extensive, and they merely represent rock hills which have not 

 been deeply covered by glacial or lake deposits. They are less 

 conmion west of Silver Creek than they are east of that town. 



The relative value of the soils. — Of the three important kinds of 

 soil in the grape belt, the gravel is distinctly the best for fruit raising, 

 and the hillside soils of the least value. That the fruit growers 

 have generally recognized this, is shown by the fact that in the belt 

 of gravel there is a much greater percentage of vineyard than in 

 either of the other belts. While it is so readily permeable to water 

 that plants whose roots do not extend deep into the ground may 

 suffer from droughts, it rests upon a much less permeable rock or 

 clay, over which water is constantly percolating ; and those forms 

 of vegetation whose roots are able to reach down to this zone are 



