THE MEMPHIS SILT LOAM. 17 



Since the soil needs deeper and more thorough cultivation, heavier 

 work stock and better tools should be employed in its tillage. The 

 Memphis silt loam is stone free, soft and friable, and easily worked, 

 unless it is handled when there is too much moisture present in the 

 surface soil. Except for the fact that many of the fields are of small 

 area and are circumscribed by deep gullies and eroded valleys, the 

 use of power machinery would be advisable over its entire extent. 

 Aside from this topographic limitation, the heavier machinery may 

 well be used. It would be particularly desirable to use the disk 

 plow and the disk harrow in the management of this soil, in order 

 that it might be thoroughly stirred to a considerable depth, and in 

 order that the trash, w T eeds, and other organic matter of the tilled 

 fields might be completely turned in and incorporated with the soil. 

 The equipment of farm buildings upon the Memphis silt loam 

 varies with the different areas in which it is found. The average 

 equipment is neither better nor worse than the buildings found upon 

 other types of the region. 



SUMMARY. 



The Memphis silt loam is an extensive soil type found principally 

 upon the east side of the Mississippi River from the confluence of 

 the Missouri southward to the vicinity of Lake Ponchartrain, but 

 found also in other localities in southern Illinois and in Arkansas 

 and Louisiana. 



The surface soil is a brown or yellowish-brown silty loam of ex- 

 tremely variable depth, from 2 inches to more than 1 foot. The sub- 

 soil in almost all instances is a chocolate-brown or yellowish-brown 

 heavy silt loam. 



The soil type is derived from the weathering of the loess, a silty 

 material associated with the glaciation of regions farther north. 



The Memphis silt loam occurs at all altitudes from 50 feet above 

 sea level in Louisiana to 500 or 600 feet above sea level in Illinois and 

 Missouri. In general the drainage is good, although local areas 

 marked by a gray surface soil and the presence of iron concretions or 

 iron gravel are in need of tile underdrainage. 



Owing to its soft, silty nature and its considerable elevation above 

 adjoining bottom lands, a large part of the Memphis silt loam has 

 been subjected to destructive erosion, and in such areas not over 20 

 per cent of the total extent of the type can be brought under tillage. 

 In other areas, more remote from active stream erosion, fully 35 per 

 cent of the type may be tilled, although erosion still constitutes a 

 serious problem in the handling of this soil. 



In the more northern areas corn and winter wheat constitute the 

 dominant general farm crops produced upon the Memphis silt loam, 

 while apples constitute the principal fruit crop. In the more south- 

 ern areas cotton dominates all other crops, with corn second in acreage. 



