

SOILS OF SOUTHERN NEW JERSEY AND THEIR USES. 9 
in color. The subsoils are mottled reddish brown, green, and drab. 
The Freneau loam is the only type of the series mapped in southern 
New Jersey. It occupies stream bottoms within the marl belt, and 
is naturally poorly drained. It is chiefly forested or used for pastur- 
age, although small areas have been drained and cultivated. 
Tidal marsh.—Considerable areas of Tidal marsh occur around the 
coast line of southern New Jersey. Some areas have been diked and 
drained and are used for pasture, the cutting of hay, and, to a small 
extent, the growing of corn. 
Meadow—Inmediately inland from the Tidal marsh areas the 
streams of southern New Jersey are frequently bordered by nearly 
level, marshy tracts which are subject to occasional inundation by 
stream freshets and to the addition of new soil material. These 
flood-plain areas have been mapped as Meadow. They are either 
forested or used for grazing. 
Coastal beach—Between the tidal marshes and the ocean or bay 
there are sandy accumulations in the form of barrier beaches which 
have been mapped as Coastal beach. Owing to the sandy nature and 
uneven surface, together with the shifting of the surface materials 
under wind action, these areas have no agricultural value. 
GENERAL VIEW OF THE SOIL-CROP RELATIONS OF SOUTHERN 
NEW JERSEY. 
There are three rather distinct subdivisions of the region into a 
forested area, occurring chiefly within the Atlantic slope, a tide 
marsh area, which intervenes between the barrier beaches along the 
Atlantic Ocean and the main land and which also fringes the lower 
reaches of the Delaware River and Bay, and a long, narrow, curved 
belt of dominantly agricultural lands, which stretches from the 
waters of Raritan Bay southwestward to the Delaware River and 
thence borders that river and Delaware Bay to the mouth of the 
Maurice River. 
These three regions of differing occupation correspond closely with 
the major soil differences of the region. The forested area is clearly 
related to the prevailing areas of the white sandy soils of the Lake- 
wood series (fig. 4). These soils are normally too porous to retain 
sufficient moisture for the production of either staple or special 
crops. Experience has shown that the territory had best remain in 
timber. The tide marsh areas (fig. 5), on the other hand, are too 
wet under normal conditions to permit of crop production and it is 
only in restricted areas, where diking and drainage have been in- 
stalled, that these areas are used to produce crops of any kind. 
Where they have been reclaimed, crops of hay (fig. 6) and corn are 
