38 The Soils of Scotland 



shallow soils, unsuitable for agriculture. On the other 

 hand, the soft "rocks" (many of them really clays and 

 sands, and therefore not rocks at all in any other sense 

 than that of technical geology) of the south and east 

 give rise to deep soils. It is largely for this reason, apart 

 from the climatic factors already described (pp. 20-31), 

 that the east, the south and the Midlands of England are 

 the great agricultural regions of the British Isles. Many 

 softer rocks, such as shales, are however interbedded with 

 the harder members of the Palseozoic formations. These 

 often occupy the valleys and sometimes form quite good 

 agricultural land. 



Considered as a whole, however, the Paleeozoic, meta- 

 morphic and igneous rocks, with their thin soils, are very 

 largely under natural or semi-natural grassland used for 

 grazing, or bear woodland of definite and characteristic 

 types, or are strictly " waste " land, i.e. covered with heath 

 or moor on peat or peaty soil (see Chapters IV, XIII). 

 Waste-land is not nearly so common on the newer and softer 

 rocks, being mainly confined to the poorer sands bearing 

 heath or heathy woodland. The loamy and clay soils are 

 used for agriculture or laid down in permanent pasture. 

 The woods are generally patches left mainly for the local 

 supply of "small wood" and are almost invariably used 

 for game preserves. 



THE SOILS OF SCOTLAND 



By W. G. Smith 



The metamorphic, Pala30zoic and igneous formations, 

 which constitute nearly all the rocks of Scotland, contain 

 no extensive deposits of limestone covering wide areas 

 and comparable with the Mountain Limestone, Oolites 

 or Chalk of England. Localised bands of limestone 



