68 Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains Soils. 



Portsmouth clay. — The soil is a black mucky loam containing a 

 large amount of organic matter. This grades into a gray or dark 

 gray mixture of line sand and silt which extends for a depth of 6 

 to 15 inches. This is underlain by a stiff, sticky yellow or mot- 

 tled clay, quite impervious to water. Occupies flat, generally 

 slightly depressed areas in the uplands, which have very poor 

 natural drainage. When properly drained is a very fine soil for 

 corn or cotton. The former produces as much as 40 to 80 bushels, 

 the latter a bale or more per acre. It also yields well of hay or 

 other forage crops. Some of the late truck crops, particularly 

 cabbage and late varieties of Irish potatoes, are successfully grown, 

 as well as small fruits. 



12 3 4 



Soil (1) 15 27 50 8 



Subsoil (1) 13 22 45 20 



Acres. 

 Craven, N. (^ -15, 504 



ORANGEBURG SERIES. 



The Orangeburg series is derived mainly, but not entirely, 

 from the red sand and clays of the Lafayette mantle of the coastal 

 plains. The overlying sands are frequently brown or gray, 

 although typically reddish in part, and are invariably underlain 

 at some depth within 3 feet from the surface by a sandy clay 

 nearly always red, but occasionally yellow, resembling the mate- 

 rial underlying the Norfolk series. The characteristic difference 

 between this and the Norfolk series is the prevailing red color of 

 the subsoil. The crop values for corresponding soils in the two 

 series are about the same, but the red clay soils appear to possess 

 a higher fertility and are generally stronger than the correspond- 

 ing soils of the Norfolk series. The Orangeburg clay and the 

 Norfolk silt loam are comparable as to crop yields, although the 

 former imder judicious management and under the same climatic 

 conditions would probably exceed the latter in tiie production of 

 the staple farm crops. The Orangeburg clay is a prototyjie of the 

 Cecil clay of the Piedmont plateau. None of the typical Orange- 

 burg clay has as yet been encoimtercd in the areas surveyed, but 

 it has been studied in other areas. 



