THE RELATION OF ORGANIC MATTER AND NITROGEN CONTENT TO SERIES AND TYPE IN VIRGIN GRASSLAND SOILS

Abstract
Soil types on gently rolling or nearly flat uplands and terraces in Nebraska, Kansas, and Minnesota were very homogeneous in N content, those on broken lands or on flood plains were heterogeneous. On gently rolling Carrington silt loam the HC/N ratios at 0-6 in. were 39.0-49.5, but on the highly rolling or bluff lands in eastern Neb. the Knox type varied from 44.2 to 77.8, averaging 57.4. The graphical relation of N content to rainfall is apparently a curve. After reducing stabilized Neb. virgin grassland soils to a comparable texture basis of a hygroscopic coefficient of 10, the following comparison of N contents in the 0-12 in. layer may be made: Eastern Neb. with precipitation of 30 in., 0.196% N; Central with 24 in., 0.188% N; West Central with 19 in., 0.157%; and Western with 16 in., 0.139%. This is a ratio of 100:96:80:71. In soil classification and mapping, the most important things to stress are textural uniformity, rainfall, and topography, in the order named.