MEADOW. 11 



In such areas the accumulations ot dead and partially decayed 

 vegetation form soils which contain only a small proportion of mineral 

 matter. Similarly in heavily wooded areas, bordering streams flowing 

 through the upland, the water of the overflows is frequently so checked 

 that large amounts of vegetable matter may be retained and mingled 

 with the contributions of fresh mineral sediments. In such positions 

 soils high in organic matter content are formed. 



In general, it may be said that the broader areas of Meadow, which 

 are not subject to torrential overflow, but merely to submergence 

 by gently rising waters, will usually be found to contain larger quan- 

 tities of organic matter in the surface soils than those areas which are 

 suddenly inundated by rapidly flowing currents. In the latter 

 cases the organic matter which has accumulated is swept away, 

 little new material other than the coarser mineral matter is added, 

 and the resulting soilis not characteristically well filled with humus. 

 All gradations between these extremes may be met, even within 

 restricted areas. 



Through some portions of the Piedmont Plateau the meadow 

 soils are characteristic of that section and differ materially from soils 

 similarly deposited in other regions. The main streams which flow 

 through the plateau have their major tributaries within the Appa- 

 lachian Mountains or their foothills, and the gradient of the stream 

 beds in their upper courses is very steep. They flow through a sec- 

 tion marked by the deep weathering of the rocks and a consequently 

 friable and incoherent condition of the surface soils and subsoils. 

 Over extended upland areas along the headwaters of these streams 

 and the courses of their Piedmont tributaries the granite and other 

 crystalline rocks have become disintegrated to a depth of 20 to 40 

 feet and remain as a loose aggregate of mineral matter, thinly covered 

 by true soil. The sudden torrential rains of winter and early spring 

 frequently remove vast quantities of this disintegrated rock, which 

 is further comminuted by its grinding passage down the stream beds. 

 Such a sand-laden torrent may suddenly cover broad, fertile low- 

 lands in the middle course of the stream with a deposit of white 

 granitic sand having a depth of 2 to 15 feet. Destruction is doubly 

 accomplished in such instances through the removal of soil-forming 

 material from the eroded uplands and its deposition upon the fertile 

 bottom lands. It is sparsely mingled with organic matter in its new 

 position; it is completely washed of all fine earth suitable for the 

 immediate sustenance of the economic forms of plant life; it covers 

 and destroys growing crops ; and it obliterates the fertile, tillable land 

 whose surface it covers. This form of destructive deposition is only 

 a form of damage resulting from the destruction of forest cover at a 

 far distant point. A stream originating in one State may by its 

 destructive inundations destroy farm lands in another. 



