Excerpt from The Norfolk Sand
The Norfolk sand is an extensive type of soil occurring along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from New Jersey to Texas.
The type is characterized by a gray or pale-yellow surface sandy soil having a depth of 6 to 8 inches in the majority of cases. This is underlain by a yellow, or slightly reddish-yellow, or, occasionally, orange, sand subsoil, which extends to a depth of 3 feet or more.
The surface of the Norfolk sand is usually nearly level, or else undulating to gently rolling in its surface features. It is well drained, free from swamps, and, in the majority of instances, the character of the soil and the gentle s10pes within its area prevent any serious erosion of the type.
The Norfolk sand, because of its coarse texture and slight reten tive properties, is unable to maintain a moisture supply sufficient to produce large crops of the cereals and staple fiber crops of the regions within which it occurs.
By contrast the type, on account of the same properties, is light, loose, easily worked, warm, and early. Therefore, its best use, wherever transportation facilities are adequate, is for the produc tion of those extra early market-garden and trucking crops which derive their greatest value from being placed upon the market in advance of the crop from any other type of soil.
Of the staple crops, corn and cotton are most universally raised upon the Norfolk sand in all of the areas where the climatic condi tions are favorable to their production. Oats are raised to a lim ited degree as a summer crop in the more northern areas and as a winter crop in the more southern ones. To a limited extent, pea nuts, bright tobacco, and even wrapper tobacco are grown in different localities upon the Norfolk sand. The yields are usually low, and the soil type can not be recommended for the general production of these crops.
Among the truck crops, the extra. Early asparagus is probably the best suited of any to the Norfolk sand and is the most profitable. It is also the chosen soil for the production of sweet potatoes, water melons, cantaloupes, and the extra early Irish potatoes in all of the North Atlantic and Middle Atlantic trucking regions. It is fairly well suited to the production of extra early peas and beans for market-garden purposes and for truck shipment. Tomatoes, cucum bers, eggplant, lettuce, and a few minor trucking crops are also raised to a limited degree. Among fruit crops, the peach is the only tree fruit which may be recommended for production upon the Nor folk sand. To a limited extent pecans have been planted upon this type in the Middle Gulf section.
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