32 



FIELD OPERATIONS OF THE BUREAU OF SOILS, 1918. 



tion are pebbles and small bowlders, of chert, quartz, limestone, 

 limonite, granite, granite gneiss, and dolomite, such coarse material 

 constituting between 5 and 10 per cent of the soil mass. 



This type occupies steep slopes leading to the Iowa and Mississippi 

 River valleys, in the latter occurring in a very irregular strip. It 

 lies between the first bottom or terrace soils and the Clinton silt loam, 

 or, where the Clinton is absent, between the first-bottom or terrace 

 soils and the Tama, Grundy, or Muscatine silt loam. The topography 

 is steeply rolling to broken, and the run-off is generally excessive, 

 causing washing and gullying. 



Approximately one-fourth of the type is in cultivation, the re- 

 mainder being in pasture, generally woods pasture. All the type 

 is naturally forested with black oak and shagbark hickory. 



Where the slope is sufficiently gentle to permit cultivation, this 

 soil is farmed in practically the same manner as the Clinton silt loam. 

 Since so great a proportion of the type is used for pasture, it is proba- 

 ble that live-stock farming is better developed, relatively, than for 

 the county as a whole. 



Land of this type ranges in selling value from $60 to $150 an acre, 

 with an average of about $80. 



Below are given the results of mechanical analyses of samples of 

 the soil and subsoil of the Lindley silt loam; 



Mechanical analyses of Lindley silt loam. 



BEEMER SILT LOAM. 



The Bremer silt loam consists of a dark-brown to black silt loam, 

 with an average depth of 10 inches, underlain by a dark-brown to 

 black silty clay loam, which at about 18 inches becomes slightly 

 mottled with rusty brown and soon passes into a dark bluish gray 

 silty clay, mottled with rusty brown. At 30 to 32 inches the subsoil 

 becomes light gray mottled with yellowish brown and rusty brown, 

 and contains some dark-brown or black and yellow concretionary 

 material. 



Locally there is some variation in the type. Occasionally a gray 

 layer is encountered between the surface soil and subsoil, similar to 

 that in the Calhoun series, from which the Bremer differs in the Hark 

 color of the surface soil. This gray color doubtless has been caused 

 by poor drainage in these particular locations. In one or two places, 



