STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. ] 45 



washing down, and the sloughs accumulating what the elevations, a few 

 feet higher, have lost ; hence another cause of loc al difference is plain, 

 for much land that was formerly slough is now in cultivation. 



The dryer elevations are now in condition to grow fruit trees 

 and wheat, while the adjacent swales are better adapted to grass and 

 .corn until drainage and cultivation has reduced them, after a long period, 

 to the condition of the lands first reclaimed. The natural progress of 

 change is going on slowly on the prairie even when culture is not 

 hastening it. 



Another soil to he noticed is Loess, having its origin far away from 

 its present position, having been brought down the valleys by the great 

 rivers, and having tlie appearance of a deposit from almost still water. 

 This is most noticeable after leaving the bottom lands of the Missis- 

 sippi, near ('airo — of which Villa Ridge and vicinity are an example. It 

 is traced up the river far above Alton, followmg the indentations made 

 by the streams and thmning out on approaching the prairie. 



P>om the prairie, descending to the valleys of the rivers we find 

 terraces above the bottom lands which are deposits of the same material 

 as the prairie that have been moved again and deposited by the rivers 

 when much greater volumes of water flowed in these valleys than are 

 ever found in modern times. These terraces will differ in composition 

 according to the amount of washing received at the time of their for- 

 mation, as well as from the changes vegetation may have since caused 

 near the surface. From the manner in which the terraces have been 

 formed, we would expert 1o find them generally of coarser material than 

 the prairie ; which is tiie c ase. 



T>ower still is the alluvium or bottom lands, of more recent origin 

 and generally yet liable to periodical overflow, with changes of surface 

 resulting. 



Our Society recognizes three grand divisions of the State formed by 

 latitude, and 1 am expected to give some s])ecial notes of the Southern 

 division. 



Whdt I have said of itic origin o( soils, in a general way, applies 

 throughout the State ; as before remarked, it is noticejible that, as wc go 

 southward in the State the general tendency of the soil is to a finer slate of 

 division. .\ person examining the soil from the high ridges of Union and 

 Johnson counties with a sample from the prairie one hundred miles north 

 would note a difference without a chemical analysis. Let him traverse 

 the distance between the two points, omitting the Big Muddy region, 

 and the change from one to the other is ahuost if not (|uite insensible. 

 Compare again the South Pass ridge with the soil of the second ridge, 

 two miles south, and he can see no difference; then with that of Villa 

 Ridge, thirty miles -south, and but little differenc.e is discernible unless 

 with the aid of ( hemistry. (.^ompare the growth of the same kinds o( 

 vegetation at the several places, and a wonderful difference is observed. 

 Whence is this.' Here we have to take some note of the difference of 

 the difference oi climate as affected by latitude, and again as affected by 

 11 



