158 Review of Essays on Calcareous Manures. 



red from the proportion of siliceous earth they contain, which is caus- 

 ed by the fineness of its particles. Whortleberry bushes as well as 

 pines, are abundant on ridge lands, and numerous shallow basins are 

 found, which are ponds of rain water in winter, and dry in summer. 

 None of this large proportion of our lands, has paid the expense of 

 clearing and cultivation, and much the greater part still remains 

 under its native growth. Enough however has been cleared and 

 cultivated in every neighborhood to prove its utter worthlessness, 

 under common management. The soils of ridge lands vary between 

 sandy loam and clayey loam. It is difficult to estimate their gener- 

 al product, under cultivation ; but judging from my own experience 

 of such soils, the product may be from five bushels of corn, or as 

 much wheat to the acre, on the most clayey soils, to twelve bushels 

 of corn and three of wheat on the most sandy — if wheat were there 

 attempted to be made.' 5 



" The slopes extend from the ridges to the streams, or to the al- 

 luvial bottoms, and include the whole interval between neighboring 

 branches of the same stream. This class of soils, forms another 

 great body of lands of a higher grade of fertility, although still far 

 from valuable. It is generally, more sandy than the poorer ridge 

 land, and when long cultivated, is more or less deprived of its soil, 

 by the washing of rains on every slight declivity. The washing 

 away of three or four inches in depth, exposes a sterile subsoil (or 

 forms a " gall,") which continues thenceforth bare of all vegetation ; 

 a greater declivity of the surface serves to form gullies several feet 

 in depth, the earth carried from which, covers and injures the ad- 

 jacent lower land. Most of this kind of land has been cleared and 

 greatly exhausted. Its virgin growth, is often more of oak, hickory 

 and dog wood, than pine ; but when turned out of cultivation, an 

 unmixed growth of pine follows. Land of this kind in general, has 

 very little durability ; its usual best product of corn, may be for a 

 few crops, eighteen or twenty bushels, and even as much as twenty 

 five bushels, from the highest grade. Wheat is seldom a product- 

 ive or profitable crop on the slopes, the soil being generally too 

 sandy. When such soils as these, are called rich or valuable, (as 

 most persons would describe them,) those terms must be considered 

 as only comparative, and such an application of them proves, that 

 truly fertile and valuable soils, are very scarce in Lower Virginia." 



" The only rich and durable soils, below the falls of our river, 

 are narrow strips of highlands along their banks, and the lowlands 





