66 PRAIRIE SOILS CALCAREOUS. 



proposition was so entirely new, and so opposed to all inferences 

 from authority then existing, that it was indispensably necessary to 

 adduce my facts, as is done above, to sustain the otherwise unsus- 

 tained doctrine. And such support, for the same reason, continued 

 to be wanting through the two next editions. Now (in 1842) the 

 case is altogether different. The fact of the absence of carbonate 

 of lime, as generally as I had assumed, through the eastern or 

 seaward slope of the United States, and especially in New England, 

 has been confirmed by all the analyses of soils which have been 

 since made by Professor Hitchcock and other accurate scientific 

 investigators ; and the proposition, however untenable or incredible 

 it might have been deemed before, is now universally admitted, and 

 indeed is placed beyond question or doubt, as an important feature 

 in 4he chemical constitution of soils. 1842.] 



[The only soils of considerable extent of surface which, from the 

 specimens that I have examined, appear to be highly calcareous, 

 and to agree in that respect with many European soils, are from 

 the prairies, those lands of the south-west which, whether rich or 

 poor, are remarkable for being destitute of trees, and covered with 

 grass, so as to form natural meadows. The examinations were 

 made but recently (in 1834), and are reported because presenting 

 striking exceptions to the general constitution of soils in this 

 country. 



20. Prairie soil of the most productive kind in /Alabama ; a 

 black clay, with very little sand, yet so far from being stiff, that it 

 becomes too light by cultivation. This kind of land is stated by 

 the friend to whom I am indebted for the specimens, to " produce 

 corn and oats most luxuriantly and also cotton for two or three 

 years ; but after that time cotton is subject to the rust, probably 

 from the then open state of the soil, which by cultivation has by 

 that time become as light and as soft as a bank of ashes." One 

 hundred grains of the specimen contained eight of carbonate of 

 lime. All this prairie land in Alabama lies on a substratum of 

 what is there called "rotten lime-stone" (specimens of which con- 

 tained seventy-two to eighty-two per cent, of lime), and which 

 rises to the surface sometimes, forming the "bald prairies," a sam- 

 ple of the soil of which (21) contained fifty-nine per cent, of car- 

 bonate of lime. This was described as " comparatively poor 

 neither trees nor bushes grow there, and only grass and weeds be- 

 fore cultivation corn does not grow well small grain better 

 and cotton soon becomes subject to the rust." The excessive pro- 

 portion of calcareous earth is evidently the cause of its barrenness. 

 The substratum called lime-stone is soft enough to be cut easily 

 and smoothly with a knife, and some of it is in appearance and 

 texture more like the chalk of Europe, than any other earth that 

 I have seen in this country. 



