20 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



suggested that the mouths and heads of gullies be filled with logs, brush, briars, 

 and grass. 



It is stated that all of the waste lands of western Tennessee can be reclaimed 

 for one of three purposes, namely, agriculture, pasture, or timber. 



The sulphur content of some typical Kentucky soils, O. M. Shedd {Kcji- 

 tucky Sta. Bui. 174, pp. 269-306). — Examinations of representative samples of 

 soil from the various geological areas in the State indicate that constant culti- 

 vation without manuring has resulted, in some cases, in a very large loss of 

 sulphur as compared with the amounts in corresponding virgin soil. This was 

 true of both surface soils and subsoils. As a rule, the better agricultural areas 

 showed a higher content of both sulphur and phosphorus. Surface soils gen- 

 erally contained more sulphur than the corresponding subsoils. 



The general conclusion is that any system of soil maintenance which does not 

 include the addition of sulphur in some form will probably prove a failure. 



Analysis of coconut soils, J. de Verteuil (Dept. Agr. Trinidad and To'bago 

 Bui., 11 {1912), No. 11, pp. i84--?86).— Results of analyses of 11 samples of 

 soils on which coconuts were being grown are reported and briefly discussed. 

 The soils are fairly heavy clays, the proportion of clay increasing with the 

 depth. An attempt is made to correlate the health and vigor of the coconut 

 palms with the available plant food in the soil, but without conclusive results. 



Some Lybian soils, A. Maugini {Agr. Colon. [Italy], 7 {1913), No. .9, pp. 

 821-332). — Mechanical, physico-chemical, partial chemical, and mineralogical 

 analyses were made of six samples of soil, three of which were taken from in- 

 terior oases and three from dry stream beds in the Lybian Desert. 



The substrata of the oases, although they are widely separated, were iden- 

 tical, consisting of variegated clay marl alternating with, streaks of silicious 

 limestone. The substrata of the dry stream beds were composed of alluvial 

 earth derived from the disintegration of the limestones and marls which formed 

 the original stream bed. 



The vegetation of the oases consisted of date palms, cereals, legumes, olives, 

 figs, pomegranates, cotton, tobacco, and barley. That of the dry stream beds 

 consisted of several tropical plants, common Bermuda grass, and a kind of 

 legume. 



The soils examined varied in color from reddish gray to dark brown and were 

 found to be either slightly alkaline or neutral. They belong in general to the 

 category of loose soils, being often deficient in grit and composed mainly of 

 small particles, although the content of impalpably fine particles is small. 

 To this is attributed the small water-holding capacity and permeability of 

 these soils. 



The soils contained a relative abundance of potash, very little of which, 

 however, was in a form to be available for plants. Organic matter and conse- 

 quently nitrogen and also phosphoric acid were insuflBcient in both quantity and 

 availability. Mineralogically all the soils with the exception of one stream bed 

 sample had essentially the same composition, quartz incrusted with iron oxid 

 predominating in the fine earth. The greatest difference in the soils from the 

 two sources was in the quantity of carbonates, which was small in the oasis 

 soils and large in the stream bed soils. 



The fine earth in the oasis soils was largely sandy material while in the dry 

 stream bed soils it was largely clay. The structure of the dry stream bed soils 

 is deemed the better of the two. A comparison of these interior oasis soils 

 with those of coastal oases leads to the conclusion that they are from a common 

 origin. 



