54 
SOIL SURVEY OF JACKSON COUNTY 
a muck in composition. Such dark colored areas, which are 
well decomposed, however, are of rather limited extent. 
As indicated above, the earthy subsoil under the Peat con¬ 
sists for the most part of a white or grayish fine sand. There 
are two exceptions to this which are worthy of note. The peat 
areas which are associated with and border the Vesper fine sandy 
loam in the northeastern part of the county, are frequently un¬ 
derlain by clay or shale the same as that which forms the sub¬ 
soil of the Vesper types. These peat areas are of limited extent 
and form only a small proportion of the total area of peat in 
the county. The other exception is found in the western part 
of the county where there are small areas of peat land along 
the bottoms of some of the drainage ways where the surround¬ 
ing uplands are heavy. In these places the subsoil of the peat 
is frequently heavy in character, but here also this variation 
is very limited in extent. In general it may be said that the 
heavy subsoil is confined chiefly to regions where the subsoil 
of the adjoining upland types is also heavy, but in such places 
the subsoil is not uniformly heavy. This soil map does not 
show this variation in the subsoil, because of its limited extent. 
Extent and distribution .—Peat is the third most extensive 
type of land in Jackson county. It covers 15.7 per cent of the 
area or slightly more than 100,000 acres. Of this amount about 
90 per cent is deep peat and about 10 per cent is shallow peat. 
The peat is more extensive in the eastern half than elsewhere. 
In the towns of City Point and Bear Bluff there ar over 60 
square miles of continuous marsh land in this county with more 
of the same type of land in the adjoining parts of Wood and 
Juneau counties. In the eastern portion of the county the 
peat is closely associated with extensive sand areas of the Boone 
and Plainfield series and with the Dunning soils which are 
marsh border types. In the western portion the peat is found 
as long narrow strips along the drainage ways. The shallow 
peat is mostly found around the margins of the large marshes 
and as small patches associated with the marsh border soils. 
It may be considered as a gradation type between the Dunning 
soils on the one hand and the deep peat on the other. 
Topography and drainage .—The tracts of peat soil are all 
relatively low, flat, and naturally very poorly drained. On 
many of the marshes water stands on the surface during the 
