The Washing of Soils 145 



ing, will do more to check washing, not only in the South- 

 ern uplands, but in hill soils anywhere than terracing. 

 The Southern farmers have long since learned that it will 

 not do to plow straight furrows up hill and down, but 

 in many sections further North, where the soil does not 

 tend to wash so badly as the Southern soils, this practice 

 of straight furrows on hill lands is working serious 

 damage. In the South the furrows invariably follow the 

 contour of the hills, and it would be wise for farmers in 

 all hill lands to adopt this plan, not only because of its 

 lessening the tendency to wash, but because it is easier 

 for the team than to plow straight up a hill. 



The red clay soils of the Southern uplands show hardly 

 a trace of difiference in color between the surface soil and 

 the subsoil, and in fact the red clay of these uplands is all 

 of uniform character all the way down to the fast rock, 

 and will all become good arable soil if exposed to the 

 action of the air and frost. In the improvement of these 

 hills that have been only scratched over for a century or 

 more the turning must be gradual and not too much of 

 the unused soil exposed at once. But this does not pre- 

 vent at once a deep loosening of the soil, for below where 

 any good plow should run the subsoil can be loosened by 

 a subsoil plow following in the same furrow. With the 

 soil loosened to a depth of fifteen to eighteen inches it 

 will take a complete cloudburst to start the soil to running 

 down hill, and when to this deep breaking we add the 

 burying of the roots of peas or clover we still further check 

 the tendency to wash. Then, if in every hoed crop like 

 cotton or corn there is sown some crop as a winter cover, 

 crimson clover or rye, so that there will be a cover of green 



