248 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. [1511, 5 L2, 513, 514 



While naturally poor in the nutritive ingredients of vegetables, these lands often 

 possess an excellent subsoil of yellow loam, which renders them capable of 

 improvement to any extent ; nor can there be any doubt that they will be so 

 improved, so soon as that portion of the State shall have been rendered more 

 accessible to the world's commerce. 



511. A different state of things, however, obtains in another class of soiL. 

 examples of which have already been mentioned as occurring in many of the 

 ridge soils of Kemper, Lauderdale and Jasper, and some of the adjoining 

 •ounties. These soils, while naturally fertile, are so light and porous, that 

 even without tillage, the roots of plants would find little difficulty in 

 penetrating the subsoil. In examining the latter, we find at a certain depth 

 (from 10 to 15 inches) a kind of crust or indurated portion, the presence of 

 which explains the fact that soils so extremely sandy in themselves, will resist 

 drouth to a considerable extent, and will also retain manure. Below this crust, 

 however, there is nothing but loose and sterile sand. Now it is evident, that if 

 by subsoiling we break through, and destroy, the subsoil " hardpan" in question, 

 we shall destroy also, and irrecoverably, the capacity for improvement of the 

 land so treated. 



512. Heavy Subsoils. — If extreme lightness and porosity of the subsoil is a 

 serious drawback to any permanent and reliable improvement of the soil, more 

 can hardly be said in favor of subsoils whose character is the extreme opposite, 

 ▼iz : very heavy and clayey. What has been said (IT 401 to 403) in regard to 

 soils of this character, applies in a similar manner to subsoils of that class. 

 The great density of the mass refuses to allow of the percolation of the rain 

 water, which is, therefore, obliged to take its course along the surface, denuding 

 the latter of whatever soil there may be of a lighter character. Hence the 

 barrenness of the surface in the undulating portions of the Flatwoods Region, 

 in which the heavy clay soils prevail. The soil, as analysis shows, is not too 

 poor to bear grass, and with some admixture of vegetable matter it might do 

 well. But no sooner has a thin layer of such material accumulated, than a 

 heavy rain carries it off into the gullies, leaving the hills bare. Where the 

 heavy Flatwoods soil occupies level tracts, each heavy rain floods the country, 

 and the subsidence of the sheet of water spread on the surface is so slow, that 

 crops are frequently drowned out, or perish for want of tillage. — Such are the 

 disadvantages of a subsoil of this kind in wet seasons ; in times of drouth, they 

 are scarcely better in their action. 



513. It is true that heavy clays are very retentive of water, and we shall 

 rarely find one of these heavy under-clays dried out even during the dryest 

 season ; but unfortunately, they retain their moisture with such pertinacity, that 

 they will not share it with the surface soil, as good subsoils will do. And as 

 their great density forbids that the roots of plants should penetrate them, their 

 moisture thus remains perfectly useless within them. The evil is still aggravated 

 by the circumstance, that they oblige the roots of plants to remain nearer to the 

 Burface than would be the case in a generous soil, thus leaving them much more 

 exposed to the injurious influence of atmospheric changes. 



We thus perceive that an improper physical condition of the subsoil may be 

 quite as injurious to crops as though the soil itself was in fault. And since it ia 

 extremely difficult, and often impossible, to remedy the defects of the subsoil, 

 while the soil may almost always be improved, the importance attached to 

 having " a good foundation" underlying the latter, is fully justified. The faults 

 of a heavy subsoil may be remedied to a great extent, by thorough drainage, as 

 has been explained above (410); but those of light and unretentive ones arc 

 often very difficult to deal with. 



514. As for the ultimate and permanent advantages to be derived from sub- 

 soiling, it will readily be perceived, that at best they are the same as those 

 attained by deep plowing in a fertile soil. 



When after exhausting the surface soil, we throw up a subsoil of equal or 



