Supplemental data for soil survey of Charles City County, Virginia

In 1988 the Department of Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, completed the soil survey of Charles City County. Cooperating agencies were the Soil Conservation Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, the Colonial Soil and Water Conservation District, and the Charles City County Board of Supervisors.

The soil survey enables users to determine the kinds of soils and their potential for land use within the county. Soil scientists observed steepness, length, and shape of slopes; size of streams and general pattern of drainage; kinds of native plants or crops; and kinds of sediments and rocks. They dug many pits to describe and sample soil profiles. A soil profile is the sequence of natural layers, or horizons, in a soil. It extends from the surface down into the parent material or unconsolidated sediments which have been changed little by plant roots.

Soil scientists produce soil maps when they draw boundaries of the kinds of soils observed in the survey area on aerial photographs. These photographs show trees, buildings, fields, roads, and other natural and cultural features that were used to locate soil boundaries. Soil map units are delineations of natural landscape units identified by the same symbol on soil maps. Most map units represent natural landscape units composed of one kind of soil or of soils with similar properties and responses to use and management. Other map units represent natural landscape units composed of two or more kinds of dissimilar soils.

Because the published soil survey does not include the laboratory data used to characterize, classify, and interpret the soils within the map units, this supplemental report presents these data. The published soil survey cannot present all possible interpretations for uses of the soils within the survey area because there may be uses of the soils possible that are not currently known to the authors. Therefore, data included in this publication can be used by professional agricultural workers and engineers to make interpretations for these soils not included in the published soil survey reports.