18 SOILS OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES. 



drainage. They may be covered with a heavy growth of forest trees, 

 interspersed by thick undergrowth or sparsely forested and the glades 

 covered with grass. Many of the meadow areas in the prairie States 

 were povered with a rank growth of wild grasses before being drained 

 and reclaimed. Other areas in the vicinity of tidewater were formed 

 at or near sea level and were originally covered by rushes and water- 

 loving grasses. 



Protection from overflow is always essential to the utilization of 

 meadow areas. This may take the form of levees along inland 

 streams, of dikes along stretches of tidewater meadows, or of the 

 strengthening and completion of natural barriers to flood waters. 



Drainage is also essential to any of the more intensive forms of 

 use of the meadow soils. This is usually accomplished through the 

 digging of large, open, main ditches into which the land drainage 

 empties through tile underdrains. Floodgates are frequently re- 

 quired, closing automatically to shut out the rising river waters or 

 the high tides. 



The cost of clearing meadow areas for cultivation is one of the chief 

 items of expense in their reclamation and varies widely under differ- 

 ent circumstances of vegetation. The sloughs and swales of the 

 North Central States are practically reclaimed when diked and 

 drained. The tidewater meadows are usually free from all of the 

 larger forms of plant growth. Thousands of acres of Meadow along 

 the lower courses of the chief rivers of the eastern United States 

 are naturally heavily timbered and covered with a secondary jungle 

 of undergrowth and vines. Such lands may require the expenditure 

 of $50 to $100 per acre for their clearing and stumping off. In a few 

 cases the timber growth is sufficiently valuable to repay such cost. 



The crop adaptations of the meadow soils are extremely variable 

 because of the wide differences in texture possessed by these soils 

 and the divergent climatic conditions under which the different areas 

 occur. In the more northern States the production of grass for 

 mowing or pasturage is the chief use made of the cleared meadow 

 areas. Corn, oats, and market-garden crops are also produced. In 

 the Piedmont Plateau region Meadow constitutes some of the best 

 corn soils of the region and areas not subject to destructive inunda- 

 tion produce corn yields of 40 to 60 bushels per acre. 



In all of the more southern areas, where Meadow is extensively 

 developed along the larger streams flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, 

 small areas are cleared and used for cotton, corn, sugar cane, Ber- 

 muda grass, lespedeza, and a variety of vegetables. Cotton requires 

 too long a season to reach maturity upon some of the moist bottom 

 lands and, under the conditions of the invasion of the cotton-boll 

 weevil, the meadow areas are coming to be devoted more and more 

 to corn and grass production. 



