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CHAPTER V 



or many feet in depth. The feature which estabUshes this type is its extreme 

 hardness, and the presence of stone-Hke materials scattered through the soil 

 consisting mainly of concretions of chalk and nodules of manganese or iron 

 oxide. These soils, which are the result of recent vulcanism, may often be 

 regarded as laterites in the making. During the past generation very many 

 analyses of Java soils have been made, mainly by Kramers, Kobus, Van 

 Lookeren, Campagne and Marr. The last named has collected all known 

 analyses into the tables quoted below^^ : — 



Composition of Java Soils. (Marr). 



Louisiana Soils. — Stubbs^^ thus summarizes the sugar soils of Louisiana : 



Our soils, then, of the sugar belt lying along the Mississippi River and its 

 numerous bayous, may be considered as varying from silty loams to very stiff clays. 



There are also the red and brown lands, varying from sandy loams to loamy 

 clays of the Red River and its outlying bayous, the Teche, the Boeuf, the Cocodrie 

 and Robert, which have been formed by a similar process by the Red River, though 

 drawn from a much more restricted area of country. 



The prairie lands west of Franklin, varying in character from black stiff clays 

 to silty loams, are our bluff lands second-hand, which have been removed from the 

 western bank of the Mississippi River and spread out over the marshes of south- 

 western Louisiana. These bluff lands occur in situ on the eastern bank, running 

 continuously from Baton Rouge to Vicksburg, giving us several parishes in which 

 sugar cane is grown. These are usually silty loams, and are also of alluvial origin, 

 though antedating the present Mississippi River. The bluff and prairie lands, and 

 the alluvial deposits of the Red and Mississippi Rivers and their bayous, give the 

 soils upon which the sugar cane of Louisiana is grown. 



As the result of many samples Stubbs gives the following average. 

 Contents of the soils in the sugar belt : Lime, 0-5 per cent. ; potash, 0-4 per 

 -cent. ; phosphoric acid, o-i per cent. ; nitrogen, o-i per cent. 



Peruvian Soils. — The following account of Peruvian soils is abridged 

 from Sedgwick.-* 



The cane area of Peru hes on the western slope of the Andes, between that 

 range of mountains and the sea, the latitude of the largest district being 

 7° S. The cultivated areas lie in valleys of a very gentle slope seawards, the 



♦German method. 



