Black Prairie Research Articles

A Land Use Record in the Blackland Prairies of Texas

By 1850 population began to spread sparsely over the entire blackland prairies of Texas (Fig. 1), although as early as 1834 settlers had been going out onto the timbered strips along streams because there they could obtain both wood and water. Uplands between streams were covered with a thick growth of native grasses, largely bluestems, some grama, and in some places the short grass or buffalo grass, locally known as curly mesquite. The country was a gently rolling unfenced range given over to cattle and horse raising, which was favored by the growth of luxuriant nutritious native grass, and climatic conditions that permitted cattle to be kept out of doors all the year around. Practically the only cultivated land lay along the valley bottoms where such food crops as corn and vegetables were grown in small fields. With the coming of railroads in the 1870's, settlement was accelerated, but for a time continued to be principally along the rivers where cotton grown on the bottom lands became the chief cash crop of the region. With the advent of wire fencing in the late 1870's and early 1880's it became possible to enclose large areas of land. Then the upland blackland prairies were divided into fields, and cotton and other crops in large measure replaced the ranch live-stock industry. By far the larger part of the cropped land in the blackland prairies has developed on Houston soils, which, consequently have been an important factor in the land use of the Black Prairie region. The Houston black clay is one of the most extensive soils in the blackland prairies and practically dominates the great dark soil region. Probably 90%o of it is in cultivation, according to the estimate of the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. The Houston soils are developed from material derived through disintegration of the underlying beds of the highly calcareous shales and limestones, such as Austin chalk, Eagle Ford shale, and Taylor marl. These are often locally called rotten limestone. The marls consist of very fine-grained limy clays containing 25 %o or less of calcium carbonate. The clay beds associated with

Geographic Influences in the History of the Settlement of Black Prairie in Texas

Geographic Influences in the History of the Settlement of Black Prairie in Texas

The Limestone Prairies of Wilcox County, Alabama

Wilcox County lies just south of the well-known black prairie belt of Alabama, and all available statistics of soils, vegetation, population and agriculture point to its being the most fertile county south of that belt. Much of its fertility is due to the presence of several square miles of strongly calcareous soils in the northeastern half. A strip averaging four or five miles wide at the inland edge of the county is characterized by the Ripley formation (uppermost Cretaceous), which has considerable limestone and marl in it, and east of the Alabama River this is bordered on the south by the Midway limestone, of lowest Eocene age. The superficial non-calcareous clays and sands (commonly, or at least formerly, referred to the Lafayette formation) which cover much of the surface of the coastal plain farther south and east are very limited in extent in Wilcox County, so that most of its soils are residual from the Cretaceous and Eocene strata. In Dr. Eugene A. Smith's report on the coastal plain of Alabama, published by the state geological survey early in i895 (pp. I94, 59I, 592), the cedar brakes on that phase of the Midway formation called by him the Nautilus rock (from one of its characteristic fossils) in the eastern part of Wilcox County are briefly described. In the soil survey of this county by R. A. Winston and N. E. Bell, published by the U. S. Bureau of Soils in March, i9i8, the limestone soils are located for the first time on a map. Four types of distinctly calcareous soils are described in the soil survey report, aggregating 35,264 acres or a little more than six percent of the area of the county. In order of extent they are Sumter clay, clay, 'Trinity clay, and Houston fine sandy loam.'1 It happens that practically none of these are visible from any of the railroads traversing the county, and I never saw any of them until I made a special trip on foot for the purpose, across country from Greenville to Snow Hill on June II-I2,

Notes on the Green Bug (Toxoptera graminum Rond.) in Texas

THE following notes relate to the writer's first experimental work in Texas, which consisted of an investigational study of the green bug (Toxoptera graminum Rond.). Under appointment as entomological field assistant, the project was entered upon on May 6, 1907, and prosecuted until the end of the year, at Plano, Collin county. As a result of the sweeping outbreak of the green bug earlier in the year, the grain growers of northern Texas in particular, which country comprised the principal grain-producing section of the state, had suffered almost complete loss of their prospective wheat and oats crops. When the seriousness of the devastations first became apparent the grain dealers met and appealed for assistance towards determining measures for future control of the pest. In response the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station authorized an investigation, the means being provided by an Adams fund apportionment. The arrangements included the fitting up of a field station at Plano, for which the grain dealers rendered financial aid that deserves grateful acknowledgment. The locality is typical of the black prairie region on northern Texas, and up to this disaster grain growing had been carried on here ex-