256 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT. 



somewhat in texture, but all rather sandy, with fragments of limestone, 

 and enough organic matter to give a very dark color. It ranges from a 

 few inches to five feet m depth, and has a stifif gray calcareous clay sub- 

 soil. The whole s«ems to be derived from the weathering of Tertiary 

 rocks in' place. It occurs in rather hilly areas bordering lakes and 

 prairies, and is dotted with lime-sinks. It has a hammock vegetation, 

 and the trees are nearly all hardwoods. It is said to be "the strongest and 

 most productive soil of the area, and for the purposes for which it is 

 utilized it is probably the most valuable land in the State. The crops most 

 generally grown, to which the soil seems best adapted, are lettuce, cab- 

 bage, peas, beans, and cantaloupes. This is the only soil [in the 'Gaines- 

 vi.le area'] on which the production of citrus fruits has been attempted 

 since the great freeze" [of 1895]. 



7. Subsoil of the precedmg. Depth 25 to 36 inches. A gray heavy 

 clay. / 



8. -"Portsmouth fine sand," one-fourth mile southwest of Micanopy, 

 Alachua Co.* Depth 12 inches. This is a fine to medium sand, usually dark 

 gray or black from the presence of organic matter, and about 16 inches 

 deep, with a chocolate brown sandy subsoil, sometimes making a sort of 

 hardpan. This is a typical "poorly drained" flatwoods soil, presumably 

 of sedimentary origin. Within the hammock belt the flatwoods are often, 

 if not usually, at a lower elevation than the more loamy soils adjoining, 

 but similar soils in the same "Gainesville area" which belong to the East 

 Florida flatwoods (region 19) are distinctly upland soils. The prevailing 

 vegetation is long-leaf pine, saw-palmetto, gallberry, oak runners, and 

 other characteristic flatwoods plants. 



Mechanical Analyses of Middle Florida Hammock Belt Soils 



I 2345678 



Fine gravel (2-1 mm.) 0.90 1.06 0.9 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.4 2.8 



Coarse sand (1-.5 mm.) 6.40 5.48 lo.i 12.2 3.1 8.1 8-8 14.6 



Medium sand (.5-.2S mm.) — 11. 70 7.70 14.5 13.3 9.5 20.9 18.8 29.5 



Fine sand (.25-. i mm.) 56.80 30.84 51. i 38.2 63.5 44.7 34.7 39.5 



Very fine sand (.1-.05 mm.).- 16.90 17.10 14.2 11.8 5.6 16.9 8.0 9.7 



Silt (.05-.005 mm.) 2.80 1444 5.7 1 1.9 6.7 5.6 2.6 2.3 



Clay (.005-0 mm.) 4.24 23.38 3.4 9.4 11. i 3.1 26.7 i.i 



Total 99-74 100.00 99.9 97.4 loo.o 99.8 loo.o 99.5 



Organic matter 0.67 2.76 ?????? 



Any one examining this table (excluding No. 7, which is a subsoil), 

 without knowing a^iything else about the soils, might suppose that No. 2 

 was the richest, on account of having the largest percentages of the 

 three finest grades of particles, and that No. 6 was about on a par with 

 No. 3, the comparatively poor "Norfolk sand." The facts of the case 

 are decidedly otherwise, however, and chemical analyses would probably 

 correlate much better with the vegetation and crops- It is significant, 

 however, that No. 8, which contains the least silt and clay, is the poorest 

 of all. 



*ln the soil survey of the "Gainesville area" the mechanical analyses 

 of the "Gainesville sand" and the "Portsmouth fine sand" seem to havt 

 been inadvertently transposed. 



