DIVISION OF SOILS. 121 



It is thus seen that even in this thickly settled and long-established 

 community there is a great variety of soils, adapted to different agri- 

 cultural interests, and the investigations indicate that new industries 

 may be established on soils that at the present time are held in slight 

 esteem. 



Important lessons are taught from the industry of the people, which 

 would be of immense practical value if applied in other localities. 

 Active steps have already been taken to follow up this survey with 

 an attempt to introduce a better type of tobacco on certain soils which 

 closely resemble some of the Cuban soils, as will be pointed out in 

 another place. 



The party proceeded from Lancaster, Pa., to Dayton, Ohio, where 

 a soil survey was made of Montgomery County, comprising an area 

 of 480 square miles. Montgomery County is one of the prominent 

 agricultural counties of the State, and the center of the Zimmer 

 Spanish cigar-filler tobacco district. The soils of the county are 

 derived from glacial debris or glacial material which has been 

 reworked to some extent by stream action. The county consists of a 

 broad rolling upland, which is cut by many broad and beautiful val- 

 leys along the principal streams. The soils of the upland are the 

 slightly weathered products of the great sheet of till that was left by 

 the ice. These soils are locally known as " sugar- tree " lands, and are 

 heavy clay loams, which produce the finest quality of Zimmer Spanish 

 tobacco. Formerly they were covered with a thick forest growth and 

 in many places by great quantities of bowlders. In addition to pro- 

 ducing a fine quality of tobacco, these soils have long been noted for 

 their general agricultural value. Occupying slight depressions in the 

 uplands occur the black soils, which undoubtedly represent former 

 swamp deposits. These soils, when thoroughly drained, make desir- 

 able farm lands and produce a fair quality of tobacco. The soils of 

 the river bottoms have been to a large extent deposited and reworked 

 by stream action and consist of sandy and gravelly loams. The 

 heavy black loams are famous corn lands, while the gravelly loams 

 are perhaps the finest farming lands found in the county. It was on 

 the gravelly loams that the tobacco industry was started in the early 

 part of the last century, and, while the sugar-tree land produces a 

 finer type of tobacco, it is still one of the principal crops on the grav- 

 elly bottom lauds. 



In the spring of 1901 the party moved to Statesville, N. C, where a 

 training camp was established and an area of 800 square miles sur- 

 veyed. The soils in the Statesville area are residual soils, derived by 

 the slow process of subaerial decay from granites, gneisses, schists, 

 and other metamorphic and igneous rocks. Large bodies of Cecil 

 clay and Cecil sandy loam were found in the area. These soils are 

 used at present for cotton, corn, and wheat. Formerly bright tobacco 

 was grown on the Cecil sandy loam, and it was thought for some 

 time that the industry would prove a success, but competition with 

 other areas better adapted to growing this tobacco drove the industry 

 from this section of North Carolina. 



Small areas of Durham sandy loam were mapped, which is an ideal 

 bright tobacco soil, but this soil does not occur in sufficiently large 

 areas to warrant the development of the bright tobacco industry. It 

 was all the time apparent during the progress of the survey that the 

 agricultural possibilities of both the Cecil clay and the Cecil sandy 

 loam have never been realized. Land is so plentiful and so cheap 

 that when one field is exhausted by injudicious cultivation and by 



