4 ilf £fi7a]T*HSD-B O OTi- 



DEVOTED TO 

 AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



Perfect Agriculture is the true foundation of all trade and industry. — Liebio. 



Vol. IX.— No. 5.] 



13th mo. (December) IGth, 1814. 



[Whole No. 119. 



PDBLISHED MONTHLY, 



BY JO SI AH TATUM, 



EDITOR AND PROPRIETOa, 



No. 50 North Fourth Street, 

 PHILADELPHIA. 



Price one dollar per year. — Forconditions see last page. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Geology of Soils. 



Continued from page 123. 



Mr. Editor, — Of the geology of Massa- 

 chusetts I know nothing personally, and but 

 little from reading; and although I have 

 strong doubts about the correctness of Mr. 

 Dana's description of it, yet I shall take it 

 for granted for the present, that her soil is 

 generally made up of "gravel, sand, clay, 

 and rolled stones, sometimes alternately 

 with each other, and sometimes in confused 

 heaps; which have been derived from places 

 distant, and from rocks distinct from those 

 on which they now repose ;" and that our 

 author's doctrine, that "rocks do not influ- 

 ence tlie soil overlying them," may be true 

 as respects that State. But while admitting 

 this, we must remember that Massachusetts 

 is but a small place compared with the 

 American continent, and a very minute 

 place as compared with the whole earth. 



Cab.— Vol. IX.— No. 5. 



and that what might be true there, might 

 be wholly untrue and inapplicable else- 

 where, and ought not therefore to be laid 

 down as a general rule, but ought rather in 

 fact to be considered as the exception, and 

 not the rule. 



That this doctrine of a general diluvial 

 covering, "from a few inches to several 

 hundred feet in depth," wholly influenced 

 by the rocks which it covers, is not appli- 

 cable to large districts of our country; 1 will 

 now proceed to show, and also that if rocks 

 have not formed the soil which covers them, 

 they have exerted some agency, and in 

 some instances not a slight one in deter- 

 mining its fertility. Or at least, that differ- 

 ences of soil do so certainly attend changes 

 in the underlying rock formation, as to war- 

 rant us in assuming this to be the cause, 

 until some more rational explanation, and 

 one more consonant to common sense shall 

 have been offered : and that this difference, 

 plainly perceptible to any one who will take 

 the trouble to make the necessary observa- 

 tions, may, if properly used, become an im- 

 jportant index to the farmer in selecting 

 jland for purchase, or. rent. In doing this, I 

 :wili in the first place describe a section of 

 'our Pennsylvania rocks, extending from the 

 tide water -egion, by the way of West 

 J Chester, Rbcidmg and Potlsville, to the Al- 

 jleghany mountain, which will embrace, on 

 'a "line nearly at right angles with their 

 'general direction, all, or very nearly all the 

 Irock formations that are found in Pennsyl- 



(137) 



