SOIL COMPOSITION 



near Midway, Woodford County, Kentucky, and 15,330 pounds 

 and 14,800 pounds of phosphorus in 2 million pounds of surface 

 soil from two fields near Tebb's Station, Clark County, Kentucky. 



On the farm of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station 

 at Lexington, Fayette County, the surf ace soil contains 15,000 

 pounds of phosphorus per acre in a 6f-inch stratum, and the lower 

 subsoil contains 100,000 pounds of phosphorus in 2 million of 

 earth. In other words, the lower subsoil between 40 and 80 inches 

 contains, as an average, about 5 per cent of the element phosphorus, 

 equivalent to 25 per cent of tricalcium phosphate. Notwith- 

 standing the occasional existence of such abnormal soils, the 

 more common soils even of Kentucky and Tennessee, outside of the 

 limestone or phosphate regions, are very deficient in phosphorus. 



Four samples of residual limestone soils from tobacco planta- 

 tions about 35 miles southwest of Havana, Cuba, were found to 

 contain as an average 4790 pounds of acid-soluble phosphorus in 

 2 million pounds of soil. (Frear, Penn. Report, 1901.) 



In Table 10 is shown the composition of adobe soil from New 

 Mexico and " the characteristic red earth from the decomposition 

 of coralline limestone on the Islands of Bermuda " (Merrill). 



TABLE 10. COMPOSITION OF ADOBE AND CORAL LIMESTONE SOILS 

 Pounds in 2 Million of Soil (per Acre about 6f Inches Deep) 



