6 SOILS OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES. 



It is only in the more southern areas where the precipitation occurs 

 principally in the form of heavy rain storms and where the total 

 annual precipitation approaches 50 inches that erosion is at all a 

 serious problem in connection with the tillage of the Hagerstown 

 loam. In general the slopes included within the areas of this soil 

 type are rather gentle. The rain water finds a deep and mellow bed 

 into which it may percolate and the existence of innumerable small 

 crevices, sink holes, and caverns within the limestone affords sufficient 

 outlet to atmospheric water so that the washing of the surface soil is 

 not serious. It is only upon the steeper slopes in the regions of the 

 heaviest precipitation that this difficulty is encountered. Even in 

 such regions erosion is not so serious a matter as upon other soil 

 types, since the Hagerstown loam is a natural grass land, and areas 

 which are not continuously under cultivation tend rapidly to reclothe 

 themselves with native grasses like the Kentucky blucgrass, forming 

 a thick surface mat of vegetation and of roots which serve to pre- 

 vent erosion. 



LIMITATIONS OF USES. 



The Hagerstown loam is so well adapted to the production of the 

 staple general farming crops that its use for such purposes has practi- 

 cally eliminated any attempt at its development for special purposes, 

 unless the production of certain grades of tobacco and the growing 

 of hemp in Kentucky might be so considered. The type is easily 

 tilled; the soil and subsoil are retentive of moisture; and they are 

 adequately drained in practically all cases. In neaily all areas where 

 the Hagerstown loam has been encountered, a sufficient supply of 

 organic matter has been maintained in the surface soil for all practical 

 purposes of high-class agriculture. With the exception of a few lime- 

 stone ledges already noted, there are few mechanical obstructions to 

 the cultivation of this soil. These qualifications in the nature of the 

 soil itself have rendered it one of the most fertile and most highly 

 prized general farming soils to be found in the extreme eastern por- 

 tion of the United States. In fact the high value of this soil for such 

 purposes has given rise to the current saying that " a limestone soil is 

 always a fertile soil." This is practically universally true so far as 

 the soils of the Hagerstown series are concerned, and particularly 

 with reference to the Hagerstown loam. It is not necessarily true 

 of all limestone soils. 



There are undoubtedly other uses than the production of corn, 

 wheat, oats, grass, hemp, and tobacco to which the Hagerstown loam 

 might be put, but so long as it equals or excels all other soils in the 

 area in which it occurs in the production of these crops, there would 

 be very little incentive to undertake the production of specialties. 

 The only present tendency toward specialization is in the planting of 



