4 SOILS OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES. 



CONTRASTS WITH OTHER TYPES. 



Not all overflowed stream bottoms are classed as Meadow. There 

 are along many of the larger streams extensive tracts of low-lying 

 lands which are marked by the uniformity of the deposits and by the 

 practical completion of alluvial deposition. Only small portions of 

 these areas are subject to annual overflow and to accretions of new 

 material, or the successive new contributions are so similar in character 

 to the materials already in place that no essential changes in soil tex- 

 ture are accomplished. Such areas of alluvial lands are readily classed 

 into well-known soil series, such as the Wabash series of the stream 

 bottoms of the Central Prairie States, the Yazoo series of the Missis- 

 sippi River bottoms, or the Miller series of the Red River bottoms in 

 Texas and Louisiana. All such areas are marked by the constancy 

 of the materials already deposited and by the fact that the new mate- 

 rials added are normally of the same character as those already 

 formed. Such groups of alluvial soils have become established and 

 maintain their character through successive periods of inundation. 



There are, also, many alluvial bottoms along the larger streams 

 where there is an annual deposition of river sediments of practically 

 the same character from year to year. While these will vary in tex- 

 ture even over small tracts, such areas are classed as Meadow, but at 

 the same time are assigned to definite groups of soil materials such as 

 Meadow, Ocklocknee material; Meadow, Kalmia material; or such 

 other grouping as the characteristic material might warrant. It is 

 recognized that while the separate types of soil have not become estab- 

 lished over any particular area, the various materials so closely 

 resemble established series of soils that in due process of time their 

 formation will be completed and they will become definitely assignable 

 to soil groups already established in some other portion of the stream 

 course or drainage region within which alluvial deposition has reached 

 a more advanced stage and the textural characteristics have taken 

 a more definite and permanent form. 



Thus, there may be every gradation in stage of completion of such 

 alluvial materials, from the heterogeneous and shifting deposits of 

 meadow areas, through the better established bottom-land soils, recog- 

 nized as closely allied to definite soil types and series, up to the nearly 

 or quite completed and definite series of well-established alluvial 

 types. 



Another set of contrasts distinguishes Meadow from low-lying, 

 somewhat swampy soils of the upland portions of some Coastal Plains 

 sections. Wet soils in these positions would soon become almost 

 indistinguishable from adjacent upland soils, except for the persistence 

 of an unusally large percentage of organic matter. These swampy 

 areas or partially drained upland soils are very distinct from true 



