GREENE COUNTY. 689 
sloping and easily drained surfaces, but sometimes in flat-lying tracts, of 
greater or less extent. To the latter of these areas the black soils are 
confined. If the stratified Drift has furnished their origin, they will 
‘agree in character with the soils derived from the limestone gravel, as 
represented in analysis No. 4. If formed from the weathering of the 
bowlder clay, they prove to be the counterparts of the yellow clays last 
described. The difference is shown very plainly in the capabilities of 
the two kinds of tracts respectively. Both form blue-grass land, and 
furnish the best of pasturage, but only the former can be turned with 
profit into corn grounds. These constitute, indeed, the best corn ground 
of the county—the river bottoms not being excepted. A considerable 
area in the south-eastern part of the county, forming part of a much 
broader area which stretches through Madison and Fayette counties, 
belongs to this division, and numerous isolated tracts are scattered 
throughout the county. Frequently the most stubborn of the white 
clays will inclose some central area that lies at a lower level than the 
rest, and the drainage of which is consequently obstructed. This central 
tract has thus been changed in color from white to black, and has been 
charged with vegetable matter enough to ameliorate it for half a century 
at least. It rewards abundantly the labors of the husbandman, while 
the surrounding lands, that differ from this in no respect but one, viz., 
that their proportion of organic matter is smaller by five to ten per cent., 
are tilled without profit, or even at a loss. 
There are no soils in southern Ohio that produce as fine blue grass— 
that great basis of agricultural wealth—as those varieties of the black 
lands that have been derived from the limestone gravels. 
A single analysis is appended of an upland prairie soil from the farm 
of John Howell, Esq., of Clarke county (No. 10). Chemistry shows it to 
be extremely well equipped for all the purposes of agriculture—a fact 
which has been amply demonstrated by practical tests. It agrees very 
closely with analysis No. 4, as will be seen by a comparison of the re- | 
sults. All that was said of the limestone gravel soil will apply to the 
one now under consideration. | 
These analyses were executed for the Survey by Prof. Wormley. They 
are full.of scientific interest, and, it is also believed, of practical value. 
Some of the inferences fairly deducible from these figures have been 
made in the foregoing pages, and others will suggest themselves to the 
intelligent reader. 
No. 1. Mad River bottoms. 
‘* 2. Buck Creek bottoms. 
“ 3. Subsoil of No. 2. 
44. 
