James G. Bockheim

This book is pretty much unintelligible to the general reader. I was hoping to learn more about some local soils, but all descriptions are done using specialized terms a/k/a code words to keep the secrets from the uninitiated. It does have lots of nice pictures of soil pits and the terrain/vegetation related to those soils. References & index complete the book along with quite a number of appendices filled with lists of soil names. Only 1 such list is conceivably useful: including slope, drainage, soil depth & Cation Exchange Capacity (only if you know the right abbreviation!), some of which you could probably estimate just by looking at the ground where you are standing. I didn't notice any caveat that was present in an earlier soils book I consulted, about using the information for a particular small piece of land due to the coarse grain of sampling & the likelihood of inclusions of small areas of differing soil types. Do you suppose mapping has progressed so much in 30 years that they know what is in every acre?
The best part about it is the epigraphic poem by Frances Hole.He was a well known within the Madison Society of Friends for entertaining the youth.
I did copy the chart on climate/vegetation/soils as related to glaciation, primarily because this is the first chart I've seen that starts pre-glaciation, i.e. 135,000 years ago.
You can see from the last sentence of the book, which contained the second typo/grammar error I noticed in my very rapid perusal, that the authors were not as particular about proofreading as they were (hopefully) as pedologists.… (más)