No. 120. Yellowish, coarse sand, taken from 9 to 14 feet. The preceding bed gradually passes into this. No. 121 is a bed of pebbles with sand, irregularly stratified, and of variable thickness and quality, extending to the bottom of the gully, say from 14 to 45 feet. This has not yet been analyzed.

No. 122. Gray clay, with a few specks of red. This was an irregularly-shaped bed near the bottom of the section.

These specimens were analyzed by Mr. D. W. Langdon, jr., of Mobile, a student in my laboratory, with results as given below:

Analyses of brown-loam soil, with subsoil, and the underlying beds, down to the depth of 14 feet; also, analysis of

gray clay, Tuscaloosa.

These analyses show very clearly the gradual decrease in the percentages of potash, lime, magnesia, and phosphoric acid, and consequent deterioration of the soil-forming qualities of the beds as the depth from the surface increases, and a similar decrease in the capacity for moisture in the same direction. The prominent points of difference between the loam and the drift sands are best seen on comparing Nos. 118 and 120, since No. 119 forms a transition between the two. This transition bed (No. 119) shows how the lower parts of the loam and the upper parts of the underlying drift shade off into each other without there being any sharp line between, and yet within 2 feet the change from loam to sand is complete.

From the analyses we can also easily account for the fact, so often to be observed in the parts of the state where these beds make the surface, that along many of the slopes of the loam-covered table-lands we find a forest growth entirely different from that of the plains above and denoting a great deterioration in the quality of the soil. A removal by denudation of the loam will expose the greatly inferior sands and cause a corresponding change in the character of the soil. Many of the poor pine ridges which traverse the areas of better land have had this surface loam in great measure removed. On the other hand, the sandiness of the soils of some of the table-lands finds its explanation in the fact that on such level lands the surface materials are not washed off bodily, but the finer clayey particles are carried by the percolating water deeper from the surface, leaving the coarser sand above. In most cases of this kind the surface soil is usually much more sandy than its subsoil.

The specimens of which the analyses are given were taken from a slope where both the finer clayey and the coarser sandy particles of the loam would be washed away together by the rains, thus preserving at the surface nearly the original proportions between the two.

In the following detailed descriptions of the agricultural regions of this southern part of the state these general principles will find many applications.

THE OAK AND PINE UPLANDS REGION.

This region, with its subdivisions, embraces an area of 16,915 square miles, and includes some of the best uplands of the state. Its two principal subdivisions, as already stated, are named from the species of pine which characterize them. As far north as about latitude 33° 30′ the long-leaf pine is prevalent; farther north it is the short-leaf species. The northern and eastern margins of this region (lying next to the preceding general divisions) are well characterized by the accumulation of flinty pebbles.

The soils along this gravelly belt are not materially different from those of the other parts of the oak and pine

uplands, except that they are, in general, rather poorer and more sandy; but since a line of gravelly hills, timbered with oaks and long-leaf pine, runs along the border of the metamorphic or crystalline rocks through South Carolina and Georgia into Alabama with substantially the same characters, this division is here retained.

OAK AND HICKORY UPLANDS, WITH SHORT-LEAF PINE.

This region includes the whole or parts of Lauderdale, Colbert, Marion, Lamar, Fayette, Tuscaloosa, and Pickens counties, with an area of about 4,135 square miles. In its soils and topography it is so closely connected with the next two regions that a special account of the same would involve much repetition. Along the eastern margin of this region there are some modifications of the soils, brought about by the influence of the underlying rocks, which in the three first-named counties belong to the sub-Carboniferous formation, and in the others to the Coal Measures. These, however, have not been specially studied, and the larger proportion of the soils may be referred to the red loam, which also in great measure makes the surface of the following regions. Most of the soil varieties occurring in the region next to be described have their representatives here, and the analyses there given will show their general characters in this section also.

GRAVELLY PINE HILLS, WITH LONG-LEAF PINE.

This subdivision occupies a belt of varying width, but averaging perhaps 30 miles, bordering on the south and west the older formations of the state (Metamorphic, Silurian, and Carboniferous), and hiding the line of contact between these and the Cretaceous formation. This belt stretches from Lauderdale county, on the northwest, to Russell county, on the east, and includes the following counties and parts of counties: The western parts of Lauderdale, Colbert, Franklin, Marion, Lamar, and Fayette; nearly all of Pickens, Tuscaloosa, and Bibb; northern Greene, Hale, Perry, and Dallas, southern Chilton, nearly all of Autauga, southern Elmore, and Tallapoosa; northern Montgomery, most of Macon and Russell, and southern Lee.

Within these limits there are about 6,170 square miles in which the drift beds conceal completely the underlying rocks and 2,650 square miles in which these surface beds make the greater part of the soils and the older rocks show only along the water-courses. The whole area in which the gravelly hills with short-leaf and long-leaf pines characterize the country may thus be placed at about 8,820 square miles. But since these gravelly hills with shortleaf pine timber in the northwestern part of the state present no very clearly marked points of difference from the short-leaf pine uplands of Mississippi, into which they gradually pass, it is only that portion of the gravelly hills with long-leaf pine that is to be considered under this head. With these limitations, therefore, this region embraces parts of the counties of Tuscaloosa, Pickens, Greene, Hale, Bibb, Perry, Dallas, Chilton, Autauga, Elmore, Montgomery, Tallapoosa, Macon, Lee, and Russell, with an area which has been estimated at 4,685 square miles.

GENERAL CHARACTERS.-As the name indicates, this subdivision has a rather uneven, hilly surface, especially where the table-lands break off toward the water-courses. Between these there are often tolerably wide tracts of nearly level land. The hills are, in general, clothed with a growth of upland oaks, among which the pines are usually conspicuous.

The surface over most of this territory is formed of beds of red or yellowish loam varying in thickness from a few inches to 25 feet. This loam is, in general, devoid of lines of stratification, and overlies beds of sand and pebbles, which are very distinctly stratified, although the stratification is extremely irregular. All these beds rest upon a worn or eroded surface of the older rocks, and on this account the thickness varies considerably. In many parts of the region the sands and pebbles have been cemented together into pretty solid rocks by the iron which is so generally present as coloring matter. These are the only hard rocks belonging to the surface beds. In some parts of the more northern counties, and in Tuscaloosa, these pebbly conglomerates act an important part in the production of topographical features, and in most of the region the hills, and even slight elevations, will be found to be capped with a sheet of ferruginous sandstone formed in this way, and giving rise to the elevation by protecting the strata from washing away. Wherever the red-colored sands and beds of pebbles rest upon a sheet of impervious clay the conditions for the formation of these rocks exist.

AGRICULTURAL FEATURES.-The red or yellow loam, above mentioned as overlying the stratified sands and pebbles of the drift, forms all the best upland soils of this region; but in places the underlying sands occupy the surface, forming very light soils, which may produce well for a while, but are soon exhausted. Between these two extremes there are many grades of soils resulting from their intermixtures. The loam, as above stated, with a variable thickness, overlies the stratified drift, and where the thickness is considerable, from 2 or 3 feet upward, the soils have the usual character of those of the brown-loam uplands. When fresh they will yield under good cultivation from 1,000 to 1,200 pounds of seed-cotton to the acre, but soon fall off in productiveness. Between the streams the country has the character of plateau or table-land, and is not much broken or hilly. The following analyses will show the general nature of the uplands and table-lands soils:

No. 6. Upland sandy loam (second class table-lands) from 4 miles east of Prattville, Autauga county, collected by Dr. S. P. Smith. The somewhat sandy top soil is underlaid to the depth of 20 feet by red clayey loam, below

which is a coarse yellow sand alternating with clay. Depth, 8 inches; vegetation, short-leaf pine, red and post oaks, hickory, dogwood, black gum, chestnut, persimmon, etc.; color, yellowish-brown on surface, passing into lightred below.

No. 57. Brown-loam soil from near Mulberry post-office, Autauga county, collected by T. D. Cory. Depth, 6 inches; vegetation, one-third pine, with white, post, and red oaks, hickory, dogwood, and black gum; color, light brown, changing below 6 inches to dark red. The fresh land will yield from 800 to 1,200 pounds of seed-cotton to the acre, but after several years' cultivation the yield is reduced to 200 or 400 pounds.

No. 60. Subsoil of No. 57. Depth, 6 to 12 inches; color, dark red.

Where the table-lands break off in the direction of the water-courses the top stratum of red loam becomes thinner, and in places is entirely removed, leaving the underlying sands at the surface. In the latter case the lands are scarcely worth cultivating, except in the creek bottoms, and even here the thin sandy soils with sandy subsoils are very soon exhausted. About a third of the tillable lands in the pine woods have a subsoil of greater or less thickness of this red loam, and though the soil is thin, it is moderately profitable to cultivate, because of the clay subsoil. The character of this variety of pine lands will be seen from the following analyses:

No. 3. Upland pine-woods soils near Prattville, Autauga county. Depth, 8 inches; vegetation, long-leaf pine, hickory, red, post, and black-jack oaks, dogwood, persimmon, etc.; color, ashy-gray at top, changing to yellowish in subsoil. The fresh land will yield 400 pounds of seed-cotton to the acre.

No. 4. Subsoil of No. 3, Autauga county. Depth, 12 to 18 inches; color, yellowish. Soil and subsoil collected by Dr. S. P. Smith. Lands of the gravelly hills, Autauga county.

The analyses of brown-loam soils show deficiencies in the principal elements of plant-food, potash and phosphoric acid, and also in lime, showing these to be essentially inferior soils. There is an important difference, however, between the soil and subsoil (Nos. 57 and 60) in their retentiveness of hygroscopic moisture, as shown by the determinations, and the subsoil is also somewhat richer in lime and in plant-food than the top soil. Deep plowing is, therefore, at once suggested as a means of improvement. Manures will be well retained both by subsoil No. 60 and by loam soil No. 6, which is intermediate in composition and physical properties between soil No. 57 and its subsoil. In the pine-woods lands the soil is seen to be lacking in all the elements of fertility, being composed mostly of sand, with very slight retentive power. Stimulant manures will do little good except for a very short time. For permanent improvement nutritive manures are necessary. The subsoil is superior in all respects to the top soil, and deep plowing will be attended with good results. The absorptive power of this subsoil is quite marked for so sandy a material, and this property, probably more than anything else, makes it possible to cultivate such soils with profit.

In some parts of this region there is a kind of pond lands, which, when drained, will produce very well for a year or two, but are then apparently completely exhausted. The accompanying analysis shows its chemical nature: No. 61. Pond-land soil (exhausted) near Mulberry, Autauga county, collected by T. D. Cory. Depth, 12 inches; vegetation, mostly sweet gum; color, a dark gray.

49

In this soil it would appear that a deficiency in the lime is the chief cause of its rapid exhaustion, and liming is the first improvement indicated. It is lacking also in potash and phosphoric acid.

The bottom soils of this region vary with the surrounding uplands, and are, as a rule, easily cultivated and quite fertile, as they contain the best portions of the soils of the uplands. The second bottom or hummock soils are, in great measure, similar to the upland soils, but are usually somewhat stronger. The best farming lands in the region are to be found in the river hummocks or second terraces, and the general character of both will be seen from the following analyses:

No. 9. Alabama river first-bottom soil, 4 miles west of Montgomery, in Autauga county, collected by Dr. S. P. Smith. Depth, 8 inches; vegetation, red and white oaks, poplar, beech, hickory, sweet gum, elm, slippery elm, walnut, wild cherry, ash, sourwood, dogwood, grapes, and muscadines; color, light-brown top soil, with yellowish subsoil.

No. 20. Warrior river hummock soil (virgin), plantation of James R. Maxwell, near Tuscaloosa, collected by James R. Maxwell. Depth, 6 inches; vegetation, originally a dense cane thicket, with some sweet gum and red oak; color of the top soil, a light to dark brown, changing at the depth of 10 inches to a reddish-brown. The fresh land will produce 1,000 pounds of seed-cotton or from 50 to 60 bushels of corn to the acre.

No. 66. Warrior river hummock soil from the same locality as the preceding, but taken to the depth of 14 inches. No. 21. Warrior river hummock soil (cultivated twenty years) from the same locality. Depth, 14 inches; vegetation, same as No. 20.

No. 22. Warrior river hummock subsoil, subsoil of Nos. 20, 21, and 66. 'Depth, 14 to 24 inches; color, reddishbrown.

Nos. 20, 66, 21, and 22 were collected by James R. Maxwell.

By its composition the bottom soil is seen to be an excellent soil, and the large crops, especially of corn, which it produces are what might be expected from an inspection of the analysis. It is liable to overflow in many parts, and is therefore less planted in cotton than in grain.

The hummocks are also good soils, having, above the average content of phosphoric acid, a good supply of potash, and a sufficient quantity of lime to make these ingredients available. In comparing the analyses we find that the percentage of phosphoric acid and potash increases with the depth, while the lime decreases in quantity, it being greatest at the surface. They are all sufficiently retentive of moisture, and will hold manures well. The cultivated soil, No. 21, is very little inferior to the virgin soil in the elements of fertility, and the observed difference in the productiveness of the two is doubtless due to the circumstance that the fresh soil contains plant-food in a more easily available form.

It is a matter of experience that when the top soil has been washed off, as, for instance, on the low knolls, the reddish-brown subsoil appears to be, for a time at least, almost barren. This, as we see from the analysis, cannot be due to any deficiency in the elements of plant-food, and must, therefore, be owing to the physical and chemical conditions of the material, to its compactness, want of vegetable matter, and perhaps also of lime, to render available the plant-food which it actually contains. Thorough breaking up, plowing in of green crops, and applications of lime would undoubtedly in a very short time make this subsoil quite as productive as the soil. The humus determination of the virgin soil, No. 20, shows 0.112 per cent. of available phosphoric acid, a very large proportion of the total amount present.

OAK AND HICKORY UPLANDS, WITH LONG-LEAF PINE.

The belt of country lying between the central prairie region on the north and that of the long-leaf pine region on the south is characterized by the almost universal presence of the long-leaf pine among the timber trees, but with it, in the upper part of the belt, are associated the upland oaks and hickories in perhaps equal proportions, but diminishing in frequency southward, and thus forming a transition into the long-leaf pine region proper. Under this head are embraced parts of the following counties: Sumter, Choctaw, Clarke, Marengo, Wilcox, Monroe, Conecuh, Butler, Crenshaw, Covington, Coffee, Pike, Montgomery, Bullock, Barbour, Dale, and Henry, and the area included is about 8,095 square miles.

While the upper and lower parts of this division in their extreme characters differ widely, they nevertheless shade off imperceptibly into each other, and it is not possible, except in a general way, to draw the line between them. In the upper half the prevailing soils are brown sandy loams, with a growth of upland oaks and hickories and some short-leaf and long-leaf pines; in the lower half the soils are more sandy, and the timber consists largely of long-leaf pine, along with black-jack oak and others which usually affect sandy soils. It will be most convenient to speak of this region under the two heads of brown-loam uplands and pine uplands, bearing constantly in mind the fact that these names merely serve to call to mind the predominant characters of the two sections, and that in each there are tracts of greater or less extent which have all the distinctive marks of the other.

1. BROWN-LOAM UPLANDS.-This section forms the upper or northern half of the region which we are describing, and embraces parts of the counties of Sumter, Choctaw, Clarke, Marengo, Wilcox, Monroe, Butler, Crenshaw, Montgomery, Pike, Bullock, Barbour, and Henry, with an area which is approximately 4,105 square miles.

In the lower part of Sumter and Marengo and the upper part of Choctaw, Clarke, and Wilcox counties the lignitic or Lower Tertiary strata, which underlie this division, consist of laminated clays and sands, to which are subordinated beds of lignite and of shell marls, often very rich in greensand or glauconite. Eastward, however, the lignitic character of the deposits to a certain extent disappears, the beds becoming more exclusively marine, and consisting of sandy materials, often highly fossiliferous.

In Barbour, Bullock, and Pike counties the northern limits of these uplands adjoin the blue marls and other beds of the Upper Cretaceous formation, from which they are separated west of Lowndes county by a belt of flatwoods. The underlying beds, however, both east and west, are in most cases at sufficient depths below the surface to exercise comparatively little influence upon either soils or topography.

Exceptions to this are seen in Wilcox, Marengo, and Choctaw counties, where the beds of greensand marl above mentioned are brought to the surface by denudation and give rise to lime-hills, which, in the character both of their soils and their rugged topography, resemble the lime-hills of the Jackson group farther south. A well characterized belt of such lime-hills may be traced from Lower Peach Tree, in Wilcox county, westward through northern Clarke and Choctaw to the Mississippi line. This belt runs parallel with, and a short distance north of, the rocky hills formed by the sandstones and other strata of the Buhr-stone group.

A soil of this lime-hills region was collected about 10 miles west of Lower Peach Tree, in Wilcox county, of which the analysis is given on page 42.

No. 140. Lime-hills soil, 10 miles west of Lower Peach Tree, Wilcox county. Depth 8 inches; color, yellowishgray, with a slightly greenish tinge; vegetation, chiefly beech, but mixed with hickory, white oak, sweet gum, a few short-leaf pines and Pinus glabra, ash, some Spanish oak, poplar, pig-nut, sourwood, cucumber trees, holly,