166 
GEOLOGY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 
I, is a soil from near the famous Zuider Zee, Holland, and is an allu- 
vium of the Rhine. After Prof. Johnson. 
II, is from the banks of the Ohio ; a fertile corn soil. J. F. W. Johnson. 
III, a Scotch wheat soil, of great fertility. Prof. Johnson. 
IV, a Hyde county corn soil, which produces 50 and 60 bushels to the 
acre. From Emmons. 
V, called the most barren soil in Bavaria. Prof. Johnson. 
VI, a gallberry soil, Dover Swamp, Craven county ; rather coarse sand 
and vegetable matter; the rains wash the vegetable matter from the sur- 
face sand, leaving a black ground sprinkled with white grains ; the sample 
is a “ fair representative of a large part of Dover Swamp, and of a large 
area of flat low lands in the middle section of the eastern counties.” 
Emmons. 
VII, a sandy soil from Bladen county, near Elizabethtown, common in 
the region. Emmons. 
VIII, a brown soil, tenacious when wet, common in the eastern 
counties ; generally overlies the marl, miocene or eocene ; specimen from 
plantation of Sam’l Biddle, Craven county, overlying eocene marl ; 
found also near Elizabethtown on shell marl. Emmons. 
IX, a German soil, from Brunswick. J. F. W. Johnson. 
X, a light yellow gallberry soil, common in Onslow county. Emmons. 
The difference between these three classes of soils is obvious from the 
above analyses at a glance. Those of the first section are seen to contain 
in large proportion all the mineral elements of plant food ; while the 
second set are deficient in most of them ; and in the third, the principal 
elements are present, but some are wanting, the analysis shows which in 
each case, and so indicates the character of the fertilizer to be employed 
in order to develop the fertility. If but one element be absent, which 
is required by a given crop, the soil is as unproductive as to that 
crop, as if all the elements were wanting, and the addition of the single 
missing substance will convert the barren into a fertile soil. 
Thus in VIII and IX, there is a deficiency of sulphuric acid and of 
chlorine, which may be easily remedied by the addition of gypsum and 
common salt ; and in X there is, besides, a deficiency of potash and soda, 
and the percentage of lime and magnesia is small, so that ashes would be 
required in this case, in addition. 
It is to be kept in mind, however, that a soil may be unproductive as 
to one crop, while it is fruitful for another ; which is owing to the simple 
fact that plants require very difierent proportions of the different mineral 
substances which enter into their composition. Hence one class of plants 
is denominated lime plants, another potash plants, ifcc., according to the 
predominant constituent of its ash. 
