The Cooperative Soil Survey

Time

    From the foregoing discussion it is evident that soil formation can be hastened or delayed. It should also be clear that some time is required to convert parent material to soil. A long time is required to produce a mature soil or change a young soil to an old one. The soils in Barton County range from very young to very old.
    The young alluvial soils are exemplified by the Radley and Verdigris series. Soil particles washed from the nearby uplands are frequently deposited on the flood plains by the local streams. Erosion of part or all of the soil as it forms, excessive relief, and parent material that resists weathering account for the young, shallow soils on the uplands. Soils of the Collinsville and Hector series are examples. The difference between layers in these soils, especially the alluvial group, is not distinct or easily discernible.
    Old age is reached when any layer develops to a point that it obscures the other properties of the soil. The high content of clay in the subsoil of the soils in the Parsons, Cherokee, and Carytown series is an example. How sub-normal relief hastened the formation of this layer that has a high accumulation of clay is briefly discussed under "Relief" in this section.
    Another good example is the prominent fragipan in soils of the Creldon, Keeno, Lebanon, and Nixa series. These are the oldest soils in the county. The extremely acid, firm fragipan underlies the present-day subsoil. This and the fact that finer textured layers are immediately above and below the fragipan indicate that this pan may be an erosional surface of a much older soil. That it formed during an earlier weathering cycle seems probable. Thin clay films in the channels and cracks of the upper part of the soil, which probably was the surface layer of the older soil, reflect leaching of the present subsoil. Much thicker clay films and flows in the lower part of the soil are indicative of the movement of clay within the fragipan. Tills clay accumulation is probably the subsoil of the old soil.
    Most of the remaining soils in the county have had time to mature. Their profiles reflect the conditions under which they formed. Time played an important part, but because the other factors wore favorable, climatic in-fluences tended to dominate.