Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 269 



oak, cold, heavy clay, with a light subsoil. Chestnut, a light sandy 

 soil. But in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, large white 

 oaks and chestnuts grow side by side. And the soil is nearly equal 

 to the best limestone land ; has a porous subsoil. Large sugar trees 

 indicate good land, and in the "White river bottoms in Indiana, the 

 best land I ever saw, apparently pure sand, but raising 100 bushels 

 of corn to the acre without rain, the largest kind of sycamore and 

 sugar trees abounded. For grazing, beech and sugar-maple lands are 

 best in the west. The stumps don't sucker ; those come in green 

 grass and white clover, and the older the pasture the better. The 

 soil is retentive of moisture ; where the water can run off, sour grass 

 does not come in ; the hard-pan under is somewhat porous, and where 

 the land is rolling springs abound. When first tilled it produces as 

 large crops as any upland I have seen. I have noticed that the good 

 lands of this country are cultivated by the good people. A soil must 

 be excellent for some great staple, in order that a high civilization 

 may flourish. As fine people as breathe are found on lands specially 

 good for grass. In fact, I put the grass civilization above that which 

 is based on corn and pork, and it is fully equal to that based on the 

 white grains. 



I would say that people on good soils get rich, and on poor 

 ones stay poor; that timber in a measure indicates the character 

 of the soil ; that flat white oak land is poor ; that red oak and soft 

 maple also indicate poor land ; that shell-bark mostly grows in cold, 

 wet land ; that flat beech and sugar lands are good for summer crops 

 and grass, but not for wheat ; that rolling beech and sugar lands, 

 where large poplar and black-walnut abound, are fine grazing lands, 

 and produce, when new, large crops of all kinds of grain except 

 wheat, when it is winter-killed ; that large white oaks and chestnut 

 growing together, and black oak and hickory, indicate a loose sub- 

 soil ; and that lands where the w r ater soon sinks into the sub-soil are 

 much the most valuable for grain ; that a soil that will raise large 

 crops of all kinds of grain, and then clover and timothy, and after 

 they run out will come in with green grass and white clover, is the 

 best. 



Adjourned. 



