292 ANALYSES OF SOILS. 



water and frost. It is a softer variety of the group, than those which lie farther east. The 

 rock succeeding the Moscow shale, is the Genesee slate, which is also quite subject to 

 disintegration, bul forms a soil more Bandy or siliceous than the rock below. It contains 

 pyi decomposition, give origin to hepatic springs, of which 



some account will be given in the sequel. The general qualities of the soil appear in the 

 exuberance of the vegetation, especially in the greenness and vigor of the forest trees. 

 Of this, one may be fully satisfied by a survey of the Genesee tlats near Mountmorris, 

 Geneseo and Moscow. A traveller can not fail of observing a material difference in the 

 vigor of vegetation, between parts of Livingston county, and some parts of Western New- 

 York farther ea<t, especially if the last are observed while the recollection of the vegetation 

 of Livingston is still vivid in his memory. 



The winters of Livingston are not so severe as in Albany county. The warmth of 

 spring is earlier ; but while the cold of winter is less, and the spring earlier, the season is 

 not farther advanced the first of May, than in Albany and Columbia counties. The re- 

 turning warmth is not sufficient to carry forward vegetation, though winter has passed and 

 the spring has arrived : it is still spring, and not a summer whose influence is sufficiently 

 genial to give an impulse to the vegetable kingdom, and carry it forward in its peculiar 

 developments. 



A large part of Livingston county belongs geologically to a group considerably above 

 the Salt group of Onondaga, and which is regarded as the basis of the western wheat soil ; 

 still, the group does not attain an elevation equal to that of Otsego, and other more eastern 

 counties. A depression seems to exist in the valley of the Genesee, by which the outcrop 

 of the slates and shales is at a lower level ; and for reasons which do not appear, the 

 Hamilton group is not fully developed in the neighborhood of Geneseo and Moscow. The 

 soil, which is very deep, even upon the high grounds south of .Mountmorris, is derived 

 from the shore of Lake Ontario and intermediate places : even the debris of this northern 

 formation is found upon the highlands of Allegany. It is, however, only in the lowest 

 vallies, and intervales along the main water courses, that the debris of the limestone shales 

 is found in sufficient quantity to increase the wheat crop. 



The following analyses have been made of the soils of Moscow, Mountmorris and Avon, 

 which may be taken as representatives of the constitution of the soils of Livingston county, 

 so far as the mineral composition is concerned. 



A soil reposing upon the thin band of limestone, at the base of the Genesee slate. 



ASALl-l- 



Water of absorption 2*81 



Organic matter 5 • 19 



Silicates 76-50 



Carbonate of lime 1-62 



Magnesia ._ 0-50 



Peroxide of iron and alumina 12-38 



