PAPERS OF GENERAL INTEREST 41 



The second region occupies the northern part of the 

 Ozarks. This is the section where the resistant sandstones 

 and conglomerates are immediately beneath the mantle rock. 

 The soils are mainly a yellowish clay with a considerable 

 intermixture of sand. The soils are light, warm, and well 

 drained, but often of low fertility, and are particularly lack- 

 ing in vegetable matter. In parts of this section the timber 

 growth was never heavy. In the flat hill top parts of this 

 section the soils are deeper and of higher fertility. 



The third section includes the southern slopes of the 

 Ozarks. In the limestone sections of this region the soils 

 are the best of any part of the Ozark highland. These soils 

 are of a reddish brown color and where the surface is not 

 too rugged make fine fruit and truck lands. 



While the soils of the Ozarks are generally poorer than 

 the surrounding low-lands, still it must not be understood 

 that they are not adapted to certain products, particularly 

 when carefully tilled and under proper application of fer- 

 tilizers. Many of these lands are the best fruit lands to be 

 found anywhere in the state. Certain truck crops also do 

 well in these same soils. 



CLIMATE. 



Since practically all of the higher hills of the Ozarks have 

 an altitude of less than 1000 feet above mean sea level, their 

 climate is practically the same as that of Carbondale, or 

 any other towns near the base of these highlands. So the 

 climatic data here given are from the records I have made 

 as cooperative observer at the Carbondale station of the 

 United States weather bureau. These data extend over a 

 period of ten years and can be taken as giving a fair notion 

 of the climate of this region. 



From the Carbondale records it is clear that this southern 

 section of Illinois is subject to great annual extremes of 

 temperature. In a period of ten years, there were only two 

 years that the temperature did not reach 100 degrees, or 

 above; and in these two years only lacking one and two 

 degrees respectively of reaching the hundred mark. The 

 average for the ten years is almost exactly 100. There 



