342 
ANALYSIS OF SOILS 
Soil from Homer flats, Cortland county. 
Surface soil, color dark brown, and very deep ; receives the wash of a neighboring hill. 
Bore maize in 1846 : 420 bushels were harvested from four acres ; variety 8-rowed, yellow, 
and middle size. The land was brought under cultivation forty years ago, and has been 
under the plough most of the time since. The field has borne, during this time, ten crops 
of maize ; average yield, sixty bushels per acre. It formerly bore good winter wheat, and 
now bears very good spring wheat; but the winter wheat is uncertain, and is liable to 
shrink and fail. The formation is above the Hamilton shales, and the rock is ecpiivalent 
to the Ithaca group. 
ANALYSIS. 
Being dried thoroughly, it lost 8'40 grs. The dried soil gave, by the 
First process. 
Second process. 
Organic matter_ 
.. 8-16 
0-00 
Silica and silicates_ 
_ 73-20 
67-02 
Peroxide of iron and alumina . _ 
_ 14-02 
0-00 
The same combined_ — .. _ 
_ 0-00 
5-18 
Potash_____ 
.. 3-16 
0-00 
Lime_ 
.. 0-25 
0-00 
Soluble silica ___ 
... _ 1-20 
0-00 
Magnesia__— 
0-00 
100-99 
72-20 
Phosphates appreciable. 
Soil from the farm of Mr. N. Salisbury. 
This is a good indian corn soil, and yields also good crops of potatoes, oats, barley and 
grass. It formerly bore good winter wheat, and now produces good spring wheat by liming. 
Maize this year (1846), seventy-five bushels per acre. The seed, before planting, was 
soaked in sulphate of iron, which seemed to give it an early start. The land received also 
a compost of three bushels of lime, four bushels of ashes, and one bushel and a half of 
salt, per acre. The hills were manured from the hog sty. The land has been under 
cultivation twenty-nine years ; during this time, it has been down to grass eight years, and 
the remaining twenty-one years under the plough. In 1844, twelve bushels of lime per 
acre were sowed upon the field, and maize was then planted : the field contained five acres. 
A part yielded eighty bushels per acre, and the rest seventy-five. Spring wheat, in 1845, 
yielded thirty bushels per acre, using no manure. Farm situated on a slope of 4° : rests 
on the Ithaca group. 
