1835.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



273 



5. Post Oak Prairie — (near Goodson's.) 

 Vegetable matter 3S per cent. 



No limestone. 

 Silex, &c. 



6. Moulton Plantation of Dr. J. H. Taylor. 

 Black Slue Prairie — (Woodland's — best.) 

 Vegetable matter 2S per cent. 

 Carbonate of lime 12 " 



Silex, &c. 



7. Prairie — (scattering last post oak) mingled 

 with red clay. 



Vegetable matter 32 per cent. 

 Carbonate of lime 6 " 

 Silex, &c. 



8. Open Prairie — from a hill or ridge. 

 Vegetable matter 32 per cent. 

 Carbonate of lime 18 " 



Silex, &c. 



Chisholms. 



White Open Prairie— from near surface: soil 

 not more than 18 inches. 



Vegetable matter 28 per cent. 

 Carbonate of lime 42 " 

 Silex, &c. 



All the specimens except the last, taken from 

 about G or 8 inches below the surface. 



SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PItAIRIE SOILS OF AR- 

 KANSA.. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



Hempstead Ariz. Ter. > 

 June 27, 1835. ) 



The May No. ofyourvalueble journal being re- 

 ceived, my attention was attracted by "State- 

 ments of the constituent parts of soils of the prairies 

 of Alabama," and more particularly fixed by the 

 editorial remarks soliciting information on the sub- 

 ject of prairies in general. 



In anticipation of Mr. Featherstonhaugh's 

 forthcoming report of his geological survey of 

 Arkansa. (though I much fear from the rapid 

 manner of his travelling among us, his investiga- 

 tions have been neither accurate nor minute,) I 

 will endeavor to give you such an, account of 

 those in my vicinity as a sixteen years' residence 

 among them, without any pretensions to science, 

 enables me to do. 



The prairies of Arkansa exhibit every variety 

 of soil, surface, exposure, and degree of produc- 

 tiveness, when under the hand of culture. Those 

 that border the Red River are nearly a perfect le- 

 vel, formed of alluvion, composed of a dark red 

 clay and sand, a little elevated above the sur- 

 rounding timbered land. They contain no re- 

 mains of shells, but the soil resembles in all re- 

 spects, that of the timbered alluvion adjoining. 



Another description of prairies occupies eleva- 

 ted situations, the surface, composed of a mixture 

 of rounded smooth pebbles, oyster shells and 

 their fragments, a pale yellow clay, and a little 

 sand. They are broken into ridges and valleys, 

 and rounded knobs surmounted with post oak tim- 

 ber. 



The Mound Prairie, and those that extend fir 

 some miles around it, are found of gently swell- 

 ing ridges, divided by timbered valleys. They ex- 



V©l. Ill— 35 



hibit considerable variety of soil. On some the 

 surface is mixed with sand; others are nearly or 

 quite destitute of it: some are a deep black; others 

 a light gray; others again are of a yellowish 

 brown; and the whole of them rest on a founda- 

 tion at various depths from the surface, irom one 

 to six feet, of a pale blue rock, that is soft enough 

 to cut with a knife, but hard enough lor hearth 

 stones if kept out of the weather, but which 

 slacks and crumbles into powder on exposure. I 

 have seen corn and cotton of the rankest growth, 

 standing in an unmixed bed of this substance that 

 had been thrown up from the bottom of a deep 

 well. This rock lies in strata of from four to 

 eight inches thick, in alternate layers of harder 

 and softer matter, and of a darker and lighter co- 

 lor. The lighter colored masses have been burned 

 into a superior quality of lime, and the deeper into 

 good potter's ware. Oyster shells and pieces of 

 coral are every where found upon the surface, and 

 imbedded in the rock; as well as petrified bones, 

 and a very heavy black substance that resembles 

 blacksmith's cinder, and entirely volatilizes by 

 heat, with a strong sulphureous smell.* This sul- 

 phur ore, as it is called, when exposed to the air 

 under shelter, incrusts itself with crystals of cop- 

 peras. Masses of erystalized gypsum are also 

 sometimes found deposited in chasms of the rock 

 penetrated in digging wells. This rock, varying, 

 but little in appearance, underlays the whole of 

 this section of country, timbered land as well as 

 prairie. Large trees torn up by storms, many 

 times contain, entangled among their roots, oys- 

 ter shells and their fragments, rounded smooth 

 pebbles, red clay and sand. When the timbered 

 lands join upon the prairie, the roots of the timber 

 are imbedded in a stiff red clay, and elevated ge- 

 nerally about a foot above the edge of the naked 

 prairie, exhibiting the appearance of this super- 

 stratum having been washed away from the space 

 occupied by the prairie. The roots of the timber 

 however, strike some depth below the red clay, 

 into the shelly substance beneath. 



These prairies when I first saw them in 1S19, 

 were clothed with a tall fine grass, and ornament- 

 ed with flowers, without any mixture of timber or 

 shrubbery, except at long intervals, where a clump 

 of veteran post oaks had been able to resist the an- 

 nual fires. Now, a large proportion of the prai- 

 rie is in cultivation; and what is left out as com- 

 mons is nearly divested of its native grass, by nu- 

 merous herds of domes'ic animals. The fire has 

 ceased to sweep over them, and thickets of crab, 

 thorn, persimmon, mulberry, elm, honey-locust, 

 peccan, the different oaks, the vine rose, grape 

 vines, rattan, green brier, and blackberry bushes, 

 render them in most places impassable. In the 

 oldest thickets, the more vigorous trees are alrea- 

 dy destroying, those of weaker growth, which die, 

 lull, and the "fire thus furnished with nutriment, 

 begins to thin out the underbrush, and give this 

 recent growth the appearance of young open 

 woods. " Thus, as soon as the native grass is so 

 rnuch eaten out as to prevent the fire lrom run- 

 ning over the prairie, these sprouts spring up- 

 pierce with their roots the shelly substance be- 

 neath, loosen and dissolve its texture, elevate its 



"This is sulphuret of iron — .also found in the Alaba- 

 ma prairie soils. See Essay on Ceil. Man.. 2d ed.f.22. 



