510 FARM MANAGEMENT 



persist in staying because houses are there, usually live 

 as poorly as do persons in the slums of cities. The popular 

 assumption seems to be that these soils were once rich. 

 They never were rich. The farmers on them never were 

 very prosperous, except when they prospered by having a 

 very large acreage run by slaves. The returns per worker 

 never were good. One needs but to travel over these 

 scrub pine lands, and then go to some of the limestone 

 regions of Pennsylvania and Maryland, to realize the 

 importance of locating on a fertile soil. 



One of the best of the soils that the writer has classed 

 as of low productivity is the Orangeburg fine sandy loam. 

 It is reported to yield about 20 bushels of corn. It is one 

 of the most important cotton soils of the South, not because 

 it is so rich, but because there is so much of it. It requires 

 heavy fertilizing to secure good yields. 



The Marion silt loam of southern Illinois is a typical 

 redtop soil. The Bureau of Soils reports 'say that corn 

 averages only about 15 bushels, but that the farmers find 

 this to pay as well as any crop. How rich a farmer will 

 get growing this crop of corn is realized when we know 

 that it usually takes 25 to 50 man hours and 50 horse hours 

 to grow an acre of corn. Of course, good crops can be 

 grown if lime and phosphorus are used and something is 

 plowed under for humus. If one has to live on such a 

 soil, he should by all means use these. But when one is 

 choosing a farm, it is not often wise to select a soil where 

 the fertilizer and labor of enrichment cost so much. 



The Volusia silt loam at Wooster, Ohio, is much better 

 than most of this soil type. At the Ohio Experiment 

 Station, in the region where the sample was taken, the 

 ten-year average yields without fertilizer were 31 bushels 

 of corn, 30 of outs, 9 of wheat, and f of a ton of hay. Much 



