354 
Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
Of these it may be said, judging from the experience of older- 
settled States, that the portions covered by the drift will be found 
to possess the most durable elements of fertility. With no data 
at command to prove the fact, I hazard the suggestion that the 
most productive wheat-lands of the State will be found, on inquiry, 
to belong to the drift subdivision; that it has more permanent 
conditions of growth, and is less subject as a whole to climatic 
vicissitudes. While the vegetable mold, or general surface-soil, 
derived wholly from organic decay, is very similar in average thick¬ 
ness and probably chemical elements over all the limestone regions 
of the State, it can scarcely be considered as the source of durable 
fertility. The subsoil is the ultimate reservoir to be drawn upon, 
and upon its composition must depend, in its largest sense, the 
problem we are now considering. It may be said to be the remains 
of all past deposits intimately commingled, which is not true of 
any of the other subdivisions. The light surface-soil is simply 
the ashes of vegetable and animal decay, and as experience shows, 
becomes rapidly exhausted by continuous use. Successful agricul¬ 
ture mast in the end look to the farm beneath for the source of 
durable and reliable wealth. Generally, this may be described as 
an arenacious clay, most usually deposited in distinct layers, not 
always equally enriching to the soil, and oftentimes some layers are 
found to be positively detrimental. In limited areas, too, in the 
drift districts, localities are met with from which the subsoil has 
been wholly removed, or never was deposited. Such patches very 
soon grow barren by cultivation. 
The portion of country destitute of drift, as at present found, is 
comprised in the western and especially southwestern counties of 
the State. South of the Wisconsin River the subsoil is either the 
direct product of decomposed limestones, or disintigrated sandstone 
—river valleys excepted—or of heavy layers of clay, which in 
places attain a thickness unknown in the interior, unless in the beds 
of ancient lakes. These soils, while all relatively rich in fertilizing 
elements, are likely to be found, after long use, deficient in certain 
elements necessary to the highest results of agricultural production. 
Generali} 7 , the clays are tough, tenacious, impervious to moisture, 
do not readily slake when exposed to atmospheric influence, or 
readily assimilate with the humus or mold accumulated on their 
surfaces, and are not easily drained. When deeply covered with top- 
