DIFFERENCE OF LANDS. 161 



chemical constitution between lands even of like apparent texture 

 and qualities, above and below the falls, as there certainly was a 

 great difference of geological formation.* 



Of the poor lands above the falls, my knowledge is but slight, 

 and founded only on general and slight personal observation, or the 

 report and better information of resident cultivators. But judg- 

 ing from such uncertain lights, I would infer that the lands above 

 the falls were much less acid than those below, even when as poor. 

 The growth of pine and of sorrel is more scarce on lands above the 

 falls ; and gypsum often acts there on natural soils, and lime (in 

 some known trials) has produced but slight benefit. On the con- 

 trary, gypsum is scarcely ever operative on any natural soil below 

 the falls (that is, on any of the great body of acid soil), and lime 

 never fails to act well on these same lands. 



The most important observation to be made on the disproportion 

 of causes and effects, in the tide-water region, is in regard to good 

 neutral soils, and especially as to that best class known by the 

 common name of " chocolate" or "mulatto land," or " hazel loam," 

 as designated more properly in England. On such soils, which 

 constitute the chief value of the best farms of James river, the 

 applications of lime have been the most extensive, and always 

 highly effective. 



* The falls of the rivers of eastern Virginia mark the eastern and lower 

 outline of the primitive region. The soils of that region have been formed 

 more immediately or recently from the disintegration of rocks ; and this 

 natural process is still going on, in the gradual continued disintegration of 

 the still remaining rocks, and even of gravel and sand. For, however much 

 the materials of the soils have been intermixed by natural causes, and the 

 soils thereby made more of uniform character, still each remaining stone, 

 and even each grain of sand, is a fragment and sample of the original com- 

 pound rock from which it crumbled down. Most of the different rocks 

 contain, chemically combined, several, if not all the important chemical 

 earths; though, as in poor soils, silica and alumina are usually most 

 abundant, and lime and magnesia are in very minute proportions. Still, 

 in the intermixture of fragments of all the ordinary rocks of that region, 

 and by their continued gradual disintegration, there are still furnished to 

 every soil so formed new supplies of all the necessary earths, and of potash 

 also. Small as may be the amount of lime and potash, there is some of 

 each furnished every year to every such soil, by the disintegration of its re- 

 maining fragments of rocks. 



On the other hand, the soils and sub-soils of the region below the falls 

 are composed of a much earlier disintegration of rocks. Except some 

 rarely found hard pebbles, and gravel (mostly of quartz), all rounded 

 by being water-rolled, everything in these soils has been reduced to the 

 minutest particles. Even if these soils had been originally produced from 

 the same kinds of rocks, as those above the falls, still there must be a 

 great difference between the soils in which the process of disintegration 

 and decomposition is yet in continual progress, and those in which it has 

 been completed and has ceased for countless ages. 



14* 



