Decatur County, Indiana - Chapter 2, 1915

Location And Size

Decatur county is in the southeastern part of Indiana, one county removed from the Ohio 1)oundary, and two remo\-ed from the Ohio river. Its greatest length is twenty-one miles, greatest breadth the same. Its area is approximately three hundred and seventy-five square miles.

Geology And Physiography

Geologically, there is very little diiTerence between this county and Jennings. In the deepest stream jjeds in the southern part of the county the soft limestones of the Hudson River formation appear. These outcrops are small and of no practicable importance, since they contribute nothing to the soils and are in themselves of no value. The southeastern third of this county is underlain by the Niagara limestone, perhaps the most valuable stone in the state, after the oolitic. In Decatur county it lies, as a rule, close to the surface, usuall)' at depths of four to twelve feet on the level, outcropping on stream banks, and occasionally being found only at depths of thirt}' feet. It is a very valuable rock commercially in this county, being quarried extensi\-ely at Xewpoint, Westport, St. Paul and in many small local quarries. The product is used for building stone, especially for trimming, for abutments, for flagging in sidewalks, and in a crushed state for macadam and for concrete construction. From the standpoint of soils, it is of importance chiefly from the fact of its resistance to weathering, which has resulted in very flat uplands. The northwestern half of the county is underlain at depths of five to forty feet by the corniferous limestone, a softer rock as a rule than the Niagara. Finally, the entire surface of the county, except near the streams, is covered with a mantle of glacial waste, which effectively covers the underlying rocks o\er practically all the county.

The topography of the county is a product of two great factors - the Niagara Hmestone and the arrangement of the drift. The latter is disixjsed in behs of one to five miles in width crossing the county from southwest to northeast. In the northwest corner there occurs a till-plain where the surface is nearly level, rolling in gentle waves and only a little broken by streams. Then comes a belt about four miles in width of upland - a glacial moraine. This is followed by another till-plain, from six to ten miles in width, gently rolling, with occasional knolls and swales, somewhat cut by streams. This is followed by a second ridge, averaging five miles in width, with the remaining southeastern corner occupied by a flat plain of loess. Under the last feature lies the Niagara limestone, at an average depth of seven feet. The streams are comparatively of little importance in this county as agents in bringing about the present surface, since this surface would be practically the same if the streams had not come into being. Their courses have been largelv determined by the belts of drift.

The Soils In Detail

In describing the soils of this county, one can do no better than take them in their order from one side of the county to the other. At the outset, it is evident that one factor which has been of the first importance heretofore will have little to do with the soils here, namely, the character of the underlying rock. It is probable that not an acre of tillable soil in this county has resulted from the disintegration of the underlying rock, but has, on the contrary, been carried here through the agency of the ice from some region to the north. We shall begin our discussion of the soils in this county with a soil which is known as the Miami clay loam.

This soil occurs in a small area in the extreme southeastern corner of the county. It is part of the great area of this soil which occurs in Ripley county. It is there described as a yellow clay, sometimes almost white where it is dr}-, with mottles of darker yellow in its deeper portions. This soil is underlain with blue till, and in most places grades into that form of glacial waste imperceptibly. It consists almost entirely of clay, with a small aclnfixture (usually less than five per cent) of sand. There are practically no gra\el pebbles in it. It is a pretty good material for tile and brickmaking, and has been used considerably for that in the past. From the farming standpoint it is poor. Grasses do fairly well, and wheat. Fertilizing must be constantly done, and, away from the streams, tiling.

The Miami Silt Loam

This soil is distributed so as to cover almost one-third the area of the count}-. It forms a belt in the southeastern part of the county, almost the full width of the territory on the south, and narrowing to about five miles on the north. It must be understood that this soil is not uniform throughout its extent. An average sample would show about sixty per cent clay, twenty per cent silt, fifteen to eighteen per cent fine sand, and some little gravel in spots. As one approaches the Miami clay loam, however, this composition changes until the sand is reduced to five per cent or less, and the clay correspondingly larger in amount. It is impossible to use any hard and fast rule in separating these areas, but the presence or absence of gravel pebbles gives about the line as mapped. Going to the northwest, as one approaches the ridge, this soil becomes sandier on account of the outwash from the moraine, and is to be distinguished from the Miami sandy loam because the latter has no clay subsoil, while the silt loam has.

The ;\Iiami silt loam is a yellow to brown soil with a subsoil usually darker in color, and much streaked and mottled with iron oxide. A few concretions of bog iron ore occur in this soil, and a good many glacial pebbles. Rarely bowlders are found, sometimes of large size. The subsoil grows heavier and more tenacious as one digs deeper, and at four to eight feet is a very stifif clay. It is not, however, blue till ; and this character serves to distinguish the ^liami silt loam from the Miami clay loam. The farming value of this soil varies considerably with reference to the place of observation. Down near the Miami clay, this soil is very much like its neighbor - poor, ill-drained and not valued very highly. It is flat and swampy by nature, due to the closeness to the surface of the Niagara. Tiling must be resorted to constantly, and the soil is so poor that often a field will not repay the expense of drainage. Practically the only good crops are grasses, and sometimes wheat, if fertilizer enough be used. As one approaches the ridge, howe\-er, the increasing percentage of sand results in a looser soil, permitting much of the rainfall to soak into the soil; tiling helps here, also. Then the Niagara is here somewhat deeper, and the surface, therefore, more rolling. In this sandier region corn can be grown with success, as well as wheat and grass. Some of the best farms in Decatur county are in this region, close to the foot of the ridge. They owe their superior fertility solely to the outwash from this ridge, for at distances of two to four miles out from it corn (5)

Upland Clay Loam

A belt some four miles in width succeeds the Miami silt loam, which has been called here the upland clay loam. It has been so called for two reasons. First, much of it is really upland, standing visibly higher than the till-plains on either side. Secondly, the knolls appear to be principally clay, and very often are entirely of that material. It must not be understood that this belt is a continuous ridge, extending as a well-marked divide from one corner of the county to the other. It is, on the contrary, a belt of hill and hollow. It is made up of a great number, possibly five hundred, low, rounded knolls, with swales or sags between. The knolls average, perhaps, thirty feet higher than the plains, and the swales are probably about at the plain level. The soil of the typical knoll is yellow in color at the surface, grading into a darker yellow at depths of two to four feet. It is made up principally of clay, with a good deal (about ten per cent.) of fine sand in its composition. Besides these, it contains, here and there, small pockets of gravel, and often, at depths of sixteen to thirty feet, a gravel base; and huge boulders are often found in these gravel bases. In the swales, the soil is sandy, with little clay in evidence. It is black or brown in color, due to the presence of much humus. Usually, at depths of six to ten feet, sheets of clay are found, which dip upward in every direction, forming a little saucer-shaped depression, in the middle of which lies the lowland. Many of these little hollows were unoduljtedly, in a former age, lakes. Some of them are still marshy, and practically all require tiling. The soil here is remarkably fertile, ranking with any in the state. It is great corn soil, and is rarely planted to anything else, unless it be clover. The knolls, on the other hand, are better for wheat and grass. A farm in this belt is a joy forever, with its capacity for varied crops, with its excellent drainage, and the abundance of pure water which can be had by driving wells into the gravel at the base of the hills. Very little fertilizer is used here aside from the barnyard products and clover. There are many fine farms in this belt.

Miami Sand Loam

The Miami sand loam occupies a belt averaging five miles in width lying west of the ridge soil. It is, as the name implies, a "light-colored glacial soil." It is, however, light-colored only on the knolls and knobs, which occur plentifully in its surface, interrupted by extensive lower grounds. It is a typical till-plain, uninfluenced by anything except glacial action. In general, it would be called level, varj'ing throughout the county probably less than fifty feet between its highest and lowest points. Yet there is not a flat farm in the area, and not many single fields so flat that cultivation is difficult. A good deal of tile is used in the lower grounds, and is said to yield a high income on the investment. The knolls, which make up perhaps ten per cent of the total area, are far less fertile than the lowlands. They contain considerable sand, and give up their water content easily, either by evaporation into the air or by conduction into the nearby lowlands. In a dry summer, even of average dr\ness, they therefore usually yield far less than the swales. They make up so little of the total surface, however, that one forgets their shortcomings on account of the superior excellence of the lowlands. These areas, which often are two hundred acres in extent, are the banner corn soils of Decatur county. They are carefully farmed also, being put in clover every fourth or fifth year. Oats are good here also, and, over this soil area, wheat }'ields well enough to be a very important crop, especially on farms where the knoll land is much in e\'idence. Occasionally throughout this area occur drumlins, whose graceful swells have tempted every farmer owning one to build his house upon it. Some of the famous farms of this county have, as no little part of their claim to honor, the beautiful situation of the homestead on one of these hills, commanding a view of every field of the estate. A particularly large and beautiful one of these drumlins can be seen from the cars of the Big Four railway and the interurban about one-half mile east of Adams.

The remainder of the soils in this county belong to one or the other of the soils already described. In the extreme northwest corner is a little triangle of Miami sandy loam, and just east of this there is a small belt of upland clay loam. Along the larger streams there occur little strips of bottom ground (mapped as Waverley) which differ little from the surrounding slopes, and are of such little extent as to need no extended description. These bottoms are usually not more than one-fourth mile in width, and are composed of material washed from the neighboring uplands. As a rule, they are pretty wet and require tiling, but when drained they are valuable little fields.

There are few counties in the state w'hich are any better farmed than Decatur, especiall}- on the sandier portions. In the southeast corner the heavy clay soil limits farming practically to the grasses and small grain, but in at least eighth-tenths of the county any crop suitable to the latitude can be grown successfully. On the typical corn lands corn yields as well, year by year, as anywhere in the state, and the same farm which yields a "bumper" corn crop may, the same year, yield a good wheat crop on the more clayey knolls. Grasses thrive in the wet bottom grounds, and good water is easily obtained. All conditions are favorable to stock raising, and much of the corn of this county goes to market as fat hogs and cattle. Such a method, of course, cannot be otherwise than good farming, since practically everything is returned to the soil, and in Decatur county most of the farm lands are continually increasing in value. The excellence of transportation has a great deal to do with farm values here. There is scarcely a farm in the county farther than six miles from a railway, and the vast majority are within three miles. An excellent system of macadamized and gravelled roads connects almost everj^ community with the railway.