•[727. 728, 729] advantage of draining. 333 



severely felt in the current year (1860). No moderate drouth could injure 

 lands constituted as are those of Madison, if tilled deeply, or underdraincd ; and 

 a moderately attentive observer, in traveling through the prematurely withered 

 corn-fields of that region, would suppose that in adjoining plantations there 

 existed essential differences of soil, but for the fact that thu fences mostly form 

 the dividing line between patches of deep green corn which still resists, and 

 others where the fodder has been cured on the stalk. 



Yet on inquiry he will find that the difference was caused by 

 uothiug more than an additional mule before the plow. Another 

 circumstance also may be very extensively observed this season, 

 viz : that wherever, by washing or otherwise, the white marls 

 (1281), have been mixed with the soil, both the crops and the 

 weeds resist the drouth, when all around is dead or dying. These 

 are hints which ought to be sufficient to those who wish to improve 

 their soil, although in ordinary seasons, these effects are not so 

 noticeable. 



727. The correction of the soil by drainage is especially neces- 

 sary and beneficial where, as is the case, in extensive tracts on the 

 Pearl River side of the dividing ridge, the heavy, bluish gray clays 

 with white concretions (1202, ft'.), are near the surface and appear 

 in washes. Such soils, in their natural condition, suffer severely 

 with drouth ; but will not, if by drainage, these calcareous clays, 

 which are always moist, are rendered penetrable to the roots 

 which, at present they force to remain near the surface.* 



For the rest, most of what has been said with reference to the tabic lands of 

 Marshall (^[516, ff.), will hold true also of the yellow loam lands of Madison 

 and Hinds. There are, of course, many local varieties of this, and as has been 

 hinted already, the soils on the Pearl River side of the dividing ridge appear to 

 be quite generally heavier, and more frequently calcareous than those on the Big 

 Black. These variations will receive closer attention and study hereafter ; it 

 would be to little purpose to discuss them specially at present, since the general 

 fact, that they are soils of great native fertility, and may be greatly improved by 

 the use of the subsoil plow and of marls close at hand, is true of them all. 



728. The soils overlying the territory of the Vicksburg Group, in Hinds 

 county (see map), do not seem to differ essentially from those just described, 

 save in that they are somewhat light, e. g., those of Spring Ridge, and gradually 

 merge into the soils of the Pine Ridges of S. Hinds, which set in south and west 

 of the line given on the map, as the south limit of the Vicksburg Group ; and 

 which in their turn, form gradual transitions into the " Pine Hill " soils of Copiah. 



729. These ridges, which are timbered essentially with Short-leaf Pine and 

 Post Oak, with more or less Black Jack, possess a sandy, but not unproductive 

 soil derived in great part from the white sandstone ledges of the Grand Gulf 

 Group, which underlie the hills and (as at Cooper's Well and Mississippi Springs), 

 frequently appear on the surface. Where the heavy gray clay, which is often 



*It is probable that thorough drainage would also serve to correct, to a consid- 

 erable extent, the tendency of this clay to shrink, and, in dry seasons, to form 

 large cracks (sometimes two and three inches wide), in the surface soil, which 

 are not only injurious to vegetation, but seriously endanger the security of build- 

 ings — as has been the case for instance, at Jackson, where most brick and stone 

 buildings not secured by anchors in the walls, or by a " concrete " foundation, 

 are in the course of time traversed by cracks in all directions. This does not 

 happen, however, where (as in the lower part of the city), this clay is overlaid, 

 by pebbles or sand, or (as near the Railroad Depot) is altogether wanting. 



