Page "Geography of Alabama" Paragraph 18

As regards its soil, Alabama may be divided into four regions.

Extending from the Gulf northward for about 150 miles ( 240 km ) is the outer belt of the Coastal Plain, also called the Timber Belt, whose soil is sandy and poor, but responds well to fertilization.

North of this is the inner lowland of the Coastal Plain, or the Black Prairie, which includes some and seventeen counties.

It receives its name from its soil ( weathered from the weak underlying limestone ), which is black in colour, almost destitute of sand and loam, and rich in limestone and marl formations, especially adapted to the production of cotton ; hence the region is also called the Cotton Belt.

Between the Cotton Belt and the Tennessee Valley is the mineral region, the Old Land area — a region of resistant rocks — whose soils, also derived from weathering in silu, are of varied fertility, the best coming from the granites, sandstones and limestones, the poorest from the gneisses, schists and slates.

North of the mineral region is the Cereal Belt, embracing the Tennessee Valley and the counties beyond, whose richest soils are the red clays and dark loams of the river valley ; north of which are less fertile soils, produced by siliceous and sandstone formations.