Soils foe Timothy in New York 559 



been drained and are under cultivation. They may range in tex- 

 ture from heavy clay, such as those in southern Niagara County, 

 to loam and sandy loam character, which is the prevailing texture 

 of such areas in the state. The moist condition of all these soils, 

 particularly of the more sandy types, makes them especially well 

 suited to the crop. 



Soils of the group generally occur in small bodies widely scat- 

 tered over the state. They range from* spots of a few rods or acres 

 to a few areas that arei hundreds of acres in extent. They are most 

 numerous in that part of western New York south of Lake Ontario 

 where the topography is relatively flat and the drainage systems 

 are poorly developed. The larger bodies of muck soil are the Oak 

 Orchard swamp in northern Genesee County, the Montezuma 

 marshes near the foot of Cayuga Lake, the Cicero and Rome 

 swamps around Oneida Lake, several considerable areas up the 

 St. Lawrence Valley, and the Florida marshes in southern 

 Orange County. Much of this area has not been drained and 

 developed. Much of the muck soil that has been drained has 

 been devoted to vegetable crops, to which it is also well suited. 

 Farmers do not seem to have given much thought to the drainage 

 of such soils for timothy, probably because the promised returns 

 are not so spectacular, although they are more certain. The large 

 supply of organic matter in such soils makes it possible to con- 

 tinue to produce crops of timothy for many years without much 

 nitrogenous fertilizer. 



While they are not so numerous, there are, nevertheless, many 

 important areas of swampy soil in the hill and mountain regions 

 and in the larger valleys. Many of these may be loca;ted by 

 reference to the soil and topographic maps. Some of them, 

 especially in the eastern part of the state, may be rather stony — a 

 condition that tends to make tillage difficult. Such areas are 

 frequently devoted to pasture, but, by the methods that are recog- 

 nized as effective to improve pastures without plowing, it is pos- 

 sible to improve their stand of hay grasses. On very few of these 

 areas will timothy fail because of lack of lime, although an appli- 

 cation may often be helpful, especially in the southern and eastern 

 districts. 



