4 SOILS OF THE EASTERN UNITED STATES. 



transportation to lower levels. Where erosion has been excessive the 

 entire soil mass has been carried away and galled spots occupied by 

 stiff red clay are found within the fields. These constitute local 

 areas of the Cecil clay and where broadly developed are mapped as 

 such. Every gradation between the galled areas, where only sub- 

 soil material exists, and the full development of the typical Cecil 

 sandy loam may be found in any of the surveyed areas. Advantage 

 should be taken of this difference in depth of the surface soil in the 

 selection of the appropriate crop for each particular area of the type. 



Scattered through both the surface soil and subsoil material there 

 will be found greater or less quantities of angular white quartz, or 

 white "flint," as it is locally known. These masses are the remains 

 of old veins and seams of quartz which intersected the original 

 granite or gneiss rock. 



The Cecil sandy loam contrasts sharply with the Cecil clay, which 

 is the other important type in the same series. The latter type con- 

 sists of a stiff red clay or heavy chocolate-colored loam, extending 

 from the surface to a considerable depth. It has no gray or brown 

 sandy covering like the Cecil sandy loam. The members of the Cecil 

 series are also easily distinguished from the soils of the Durham series, 

 are also easily distinguished from the soils of the Durham series, 

 which are gray or yellow at the surface and possess lemon-j-ellow 

 or pale-yellow subsoils. Similarly the Cecil series may be separated 

 from the Iredell series, which have brown or yellow surface soils and 

 yellow or mottled yellow and gray subsoils. The stiff waxy subsoil 

 of the members of the Iredell series is very impervious to water and 

 gives rise to the scrub-oak soils and " beeswax " land of this Piedmont 

 section. The Cecil sandy loam is rarely associated with the soils of 

 the Chester series, which have a brown surface soil and a yellow 

 loamy subsoil, or with the Penn series, which have a characteristic 

 Indian red color in both soil and subsoil and are derived through the 

 weathering of sandstones and shales. 



SURFACE FEATURES AND DRAINAGE. 



The Cecil sandy loam occurs only in that broad plateau section 

 which lies along the front of the Appalachian Mountain Ranges, 

 and from that region slopes gently seaward until it is covered by 

 later deposits of the Coastal Plain along what is known as the 

 fall line. This section extends from New Jersey to east-central 

 Alabama, but the Cecil soils are only developed in the more southern 

 portion from Maryland to Alabama. The Cecil sandy loam occu- 

 pies the level uplands, the rolling or undulating crests of ridges, 

 and those portions of the higher part of the Piedmont section which 

 are best protected from active soil -erosion and which have, there- 

 fore, been able to maintain the deeper surface covering of sandy and 

 sandy loam material. In consequence the surface of the Cecil sandy 

 loam in its typical development is undulating to gently rolling, and 



