Excerpt from Soil Moisture: A Record of the Amount of Water Contained in Soils During the Month of July, 1895

It will be seen that the soils differ very markedly in their texture. The truck soils of the Atlantic Coast contain from 1 to 10 per Cent of clay. As a rule, the less clay they contain the earlier the crops mature, which is the most important element in truck farming. A soil con taining between 4 and 5 per cent of clay, as shown in this sample, is an average truck soil adapted to any Of'the usual truck crops. The truck soils, as a rule, consist of from 70 to 85 per cent of the different grades of sand. The finest tvpe of grass land In the Eastern States, on the other hand, contains a very much larger percentage of clay. It contains not more than 5 or 10 per cent of the various grades of sand and from 28 to 50 perc cent of clay.

On account of this marked difference in the texture of these soils, they maintain, even with the same rainfall, very different conditions of moisture, and this adapts them to different classes of crops.

The trucking interest depends upon the early maturity of vegetables and small fruits, so that they can be put upon the market before there is competition from other soils of the State. It is carried oii under a very intense system of cultivation. The value Of the truck crops of Maryland is about equal to the value of the wheat crop and nearly equal in value to the corn crop, but the truck farming is confined to a narrow belt of land along the coast and Chesapeake Bay, and in the aggregate there is not more than one-tenth of the corn acreage devoted to this interest. This is without considering the market gardening around the larger cities and the production of fruits, which would very materially increase the relative importance of this class of agricultural crops without greatly extending the acreage.

These truck soils do not yield as much per acre nor is the quality Of the crops produced as fine as on the heavier soils of the State, but vegetables can be forced to mature early and be placed upon the market during the winter and early spring months sometime before they can be matured upon the heavier soils.

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