464 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



[August 



No. 1, p. 498, vol. iii.) Greene— Dr. R. 

 Withers. Loose, dark friable sandy loam. 

 No evidence to the eye of being calcareous. 

 Contained carbonate lime, 8 per cent. 



(No. 2, p. 498.) Greene— R. Withers. 

 Open or bald prairie of the most usual kind, 

 would then produce 50 bushels of corn — but 

 produces cotton badly. Contained 33 per 

 cent, carbonate lime. 



To these, as examples, may be added al- 

 most every black and rich high land soil in 

 all this region, as was made evident to me 

 by numerous recent testings by acid, or 

 otherwise by the presence of calcareous 

 gravel, obvious to the sight, and therefore, 

 requiring no chemical test of the soil, 

 ly. Post oak or other non- calca- 

 reous LANDS — found BY ANALYSIS TO 

 CONTAIN NO CARBONATE OF LIME. 



No. 3, p. 498, vol. iii.) Greene— R. 

 Withers. Post oak land. V ery tenacious 

 clay soil. Reta'ns water strongly. Very miry 

 after rainy weather, and very hard in dry. 



(No. 4, p. 331.) Marengo— R. Cocke. 

 Rich bottom cane land — very wet in win- 

 ter, though dry in summer. 



(No. 5, p. 381.) Marengo— R. Cocke. 

 Best post oak land — trees of that kind from 2 

 to 4 feet in diameter — little underwood and 

 no cane, Nearly as rich as best cane land. 



(No. 6, p. 331.) Palmetto land— Large 

 trees — small cane. Soil 4 to 10 feet deep. 

 Wet and cold before being cultivated, but 

 afterwards dry and in good tilth. 



(fNo. 31, p. 333 and 272.) Post oak 

 land. Montgomery — F. Elmore. Vegetable 

 matter, per cent., and no carbonate of lime. 



(fNo. 29, p. 333 and 272.) Montgome- 

 ry — F. Elmore. Open prairie-— mahogany 

 colored. Vegetable matter, 38 per cent. 

 No limestone [or carbonate of lime.] 



To these may be added very many other 

 post oak" soils, rich, of medium fertility 

 and poor, which I lately examined and test- 

 ed, in place, and which, like all the above 

 contained not a particle of carbonate of lime. 



In endeavoring to arrange the foregoing 

 soils into classes, it is possible that mistakes 

 may h£ive been made, especially as to some 

 of these copied from the reports of others. 



"t" No. 29 is here put down as reported by Dr. 

 R. W. Gibbes. But from the diflereut result (in 

 absence of carbonate of lime) from all other 

 " open prairie" soil, I suspect a mistakn in la- 

 belling the specimen — and the more so, because 

 it agrees precisely in its parts with the prece- 

 ding. No. 31. 1 



For the terms used are not only often inac- 

 curate in the general signification, but they 

 are also applied dilferently in different lo- 

 calities, and consequently by different 

 writers. Thus " bald" and open" prairie, 

 are used by different persons to designate 

 the richest, as well as the poorest land. 

 Other confine " bald" to the extremely cal- 

 careous and also poor praries. '* Slue" is 

 used by some for low and formerly wet bot- 

 toms only, and by others, "slue prairie" is 

 evidently used as synonymous with " wood- 

 ed prairie.^' 



In addition to the " open" or bald prai- 

 rie" which at first might have been rich, in 

 after time, in many cases, by continued ex- 

 hausting tillage, and by washing, has become 

 very poor. Thus, there may be doubt as to 

 whether some samples should have been 

 placed in the second or the third of the 

 above divisions. 



If the very large proportions of vegetable 

 (or organic) matter, stated in every one of 

 twelve analyses made by Drs. Cooper, Gibbes 

 and Nott, are usual in all these calcareous 

 lands, it is a very curious and important 

 fact, which well deserves the attention of the 

 proprietors in reference to the future fertility 

 and production of their lands, and also of 

 chemits and scientific agriculturists, as being 

 a novel and very interesting fact in agricul- 

 tural chemistry. Both as a question of agri- 

 cultural science, and of agricultural economy 

 and improvement, the proper and thorough 

 investigation of these soils by a competent 

 and faithful chemist, would be rewarded by 

 most interesting and important results. 



According to my own partial analyses, 

 and rough testing of numerous specimens of 

 soils and of general examinations of the 

 lands, there can be no question of the remark- 

 able and general abundance of carbonate 

 of lime in the calcareous soils — and of its 

 total absence in the " post oak lands — of the 

 great deficiency of fine silicious sand, and 

 the entire general absence of coarse, in both 

 kinds — and the unusual and very large pro^ 

 portion of fine clay. And, if the twelve 

 analyses of different soils and subsoils in 

 Lowndes, by Drs. Cooper, Gibbes, and Nott 

 are to be taken as indications of the general 

 constitution of the black and calcareous 

 soils, there is also as remarkable and unu- 

 sual an excess of vegetable matter — and 

 more than has been found in any other soils 

 yet known, except in peaty soils. 



To he Continued. 



