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SOIL SURVEY OF DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS. 1253
All of the county is reached by rural mail delivery, telephones are
in general use, and schools and churches are plentiful.
Dallas is the principal market for vegetables, fruit, poultry, and
dairy products.
The climate is mild and healthful. The mean annual temperature
as reported at Dallas is 64.9 F., and the mean annual precipitation
is 38.04 inches. The average growing season is 237 days.
The agriculture of Dallas County consists mainly of general farming,
the principal crops being cotton, corn, oats, wheat, and saccharine
sorghum. Considerable market gardening is carried on. There
are some dairy farms around Dallas, and many of the general farms
produce milk for the market in a small way. Some stock farming
is done. Small orchards
provide fruit for local use, but the fruit
crop is uncertain owing to the late spring frosts.
About 83 per cent of all the land in the county is in farms. Most
of the farms are well improved and have good buildings and work
stock.
i No systematic crop rotation is practiced, but many farmers change
the crops from time to time. No commercial fertilizers and very
little barnyard manure is used. Farm labor is rather scarce and
expensive. A very large proportion of the land is farmed by tenants.
There are 5,379 farms in Dallas County, with an average size of
84.2 acres. Farm land sells for $100 to $300 an acre. Little good
land is to be had for the lower figure.
The county lies within the Black Prairie region of Texas. The
geological formations which give the residual soils belong to the
Upper Cretaceous. They are (1) the Taylor marl which underlies
the eastern one-fourth of the county, geographically known as the
Taylor Prairie; .(2) the Austin chalk, which underlies the central
half of the county and comprises the underlying formation of the
White Rock Prairie; and (3) the Eagle Ford shales, the formation
underlying the Eagle Ford Prairie, which comprises the western
fourth of the county. These prairies run in parallel belts from north
to south and have no definite, easily recognizable dividing features
except in the southwestern part, where the Austin chalk forms a high
escarpment facing the Eagle Ford Prairie to the west. These
prairies are interspersed with some broad, flat, alluvial bottoms
along the streams and some high, level, old terraces composed of
sediments laid down by ancient streams. Originally the alluvial
soils all supported a heavy forest growth, but the most of this has
been cleared off.
The marls and chalk give rise to the soils of the Houston series.
The Eagle Ford shale has weathered into one type, the Ellis clay.
The old-alluvial deposits forming the stream terraces have given
rise to the soils of the Irving, Bell, Leaf, Cahaba, Kalmia, Lewisville,
and Amite series.
The recent-alluvial soils along the streams are correlated with the
Trinity, Catalpa, Frio, and Ochlockonee series.
The Houston black clay is the most extensive soil type in the
county. It is very similar in color and texture to the Bell clay,
which is an equally important soil type in agricultural value. These
two soils are very productive and well suited to cotton, corn, wheat,
oats, forage crops, and grass. The Houston clay and Lewisville