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, but forms a soil more sandy or siliceous than the rock below. It contains 
pyrites, which, in the course of 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 flats 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 east, 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. 
ANALYSIS. 
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 
99*00 
