82 BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN MEMOIRS 



Grasslands Moisture Holding Capacity 



Montauk Downs 43-0% 



Hempstead Plains " 44.0 



Shinnecock Hills 33.6 



Forest 



Montauk 70.5% 



17 Pitch Pine stations on L. I. 83.9 



18 Oak stations on L. I. 97.2 



The wilting coefificient of Montauk soils, is as follows: 



Subsoils Wilting Coefficient 



Open Downs 4-7% 



Forest 5.6 

 Surface soils 



Open Downs 6.1% 



Forest 15.1 



Other grasslands on Long Island average for the wilting coefficient of 

 their surface soils 7.8%, which is close enough to the Montauk Downs to 

 be of little significance. As might be expected, the surface soil, on grass- 

 lands, once that type of vegetation has become established, ought not to 

 vary much from one place to another, for in every case we are recording 

 not the capacity of the soil itself, but rather how that capacity has been 

 affected by the vegetation which has captured it. That is why the wilting 

 coefficient of the surface soils of all these Long Island grasslands is so nearly 

 uniform. 



While the fertility of Montauk soil is not known with any accuracy, 

 one criterion of it is the vegetable garden near the Inn. This is about two 

 acres, protected from most of the wind, and several years observation of 

 it appears to indicate average fertility. Certainly the soil there is no worse 

 than in hundreds of other gardens on eastern Long Island. 



In attempting to see if the hydrogen-ion concentration of the soil has 

 any effect on the vegetation many scores of tests according to the method 

 of Wherry* have been made at Montauk. 



Except for highly specialized habitats, such as cranberry bogs and salt 

 marshes, the general uniformity of the specific acidity of these soils is note- 

 worthy. From experience in making hundreds of these tests on other 

 Long Island soils, as well as at Montauk, it may be safely stated that soils 

 that range from a specific acidity of 3+ to 30+, or in most cases 

 even to 100, are without significance, as to influencing the distribution 

 of the major features of the vegetation. So far as individual species 



* Wherry, E. T. Ecology 1: 42-47, and 160-174. 1920. Rhodora 22: 33-41. 1920. 

 Amer. Fern. Jour. 10: 15-22. 1920. Proc. Phil. Acad. Nat. Sci. 72: 113-119. 1920. 

 Smithson. Rep. 1920: 247-268. 1922. 



